How do I cite references in AMA style? Examples for every source type

What is AMA citation style?

AMA style is the reference format set out in the AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors, written by the JAMA Network editors. The current edition is the 11th, published by Oxford University Press in 2020 and maintained online, where the committee adds updates between print editions (for example, guidance on how to report the use of AI chatbots). As of October 2026 there is no 12th edition.

It is a numbered, citation-sequence style. JAMA and the JAMA Network journals use it, and so do many other US medical and allied-health journals. Your target journal's instructions for authors always override the manual, so check them first.

The core rules:

1. Number references consecutively, in the order they are first cited in the text. Do not alphabetize.
2. Cite in the text, tables and figure legends with superscript Arabic numerals. A source keeps its first number every time you cite it again.
3. Give each source its own number. Never combine two sources under one number.
4. List the references at the end in numerical order.

How do you cite a journal article in AMA?

The pattern is:

Author AA, Author BB. Title of article in sentence case. Abbrev Journal Name. Year;Volume(Issue):first page-last page. doi:10.xxxx/xxxxx

Every example below is a real article, checked against its PubMed record or its Crossref DOI record.

One author

Ioannidis JP. Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med. 2005;2(8):e124. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

Two to six authors: list every author

Walters WH, Wilder EI. Fabrication and errors in the bibliographic citations generated by ChatGPT. Sci Rep. 2023;13(1):14045. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-41032-5

Bhattacharyya M, Miller VM, Bhattacharyya D, Miller LE. High rates of fabricated and inaccurate references in ChatGPT-generated medical content. Cureus. 2023;15(5):e39238. doi:10.7759/cureus.39238

More than six authors: first 3, then et al

Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ. 2021;372:n71. doi:10.1136/bmj.n71

Hopewell S, Chan AW, Collins GS, et al. CONSORT 2025 statement: updated guideline for reporting randomised trials. BMJ. 2025;389:e081123. doi:10.1136/bmj-2024-081123

Older article without a DOI

Bland JM, Altman DG. Statistical methods for assessing agreement between two methods of clinical measurement. Lancet. 1986;1(8476):307-310.

Details people get wrong:

• Author names: surname, then initials with no periods or spaces between the initials (Page MJ, not Page, M.J.).
• "et al" takes no period of its own in AMA. The full stop you see after it ends the author list.
• Article titles go in sentence case: capitalize only the first word, proper nouns and abbreviations (ChatGPT, PRISMA, CONSORT).
• There are no spaces in "2023;15(5):e39238". If the article has no page numbers, use the e-locator (e39238, n71) instead.
• Page ranges are written out in full (307-310, not 307-10).

How do you format a DOI in AMA style?

Write it as "doi:" in lowercase, followed by the DOI with no space and no period at the end: doi:10.1136/bmj.n71. If the article has a DOI, include it. A DOI replaces the URL, and you do not need an accessed date. Use a URL plus an accessed date only when the source has no DOI.

How do you cite books, chapters, preprints and websites in AMA?

Notes on the table:

• Book and journal names are italic. Chapter, article and web page titles are not italic and never go in quotation marks.
• Do not write "1st ed". State the edition only from the 2nd onward.
• The 11th edition dropped the publisher's city from book references.
• A preprint is cited as the version you actually read. If it has since been published in a journal, cite the journal version when you relied on that one.
• Many journals, JAMA among them, want statistical software named in the Methods text, for example "analyses used R version 4.4.1 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing)", rather than in the reference list. Do what the journal's instructions say.

How do you cite ChatGPT or other AI tools in AMA style?

The online AMA Manual (section 3.15.13) says that authors' use of large language models and chatbots belongs in the running text, not in the reference list, which is how statistical software is handled. Describe how you used the tool in the Methods section, or in the Acknowledgment section if it helped with writing or editing. Name the tool, its version and manufacturer, the dates you used it and, where it matters for reproducibility, the prompts. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. You remain responsible for everything they produced. Our guide to the AI disclosure statement for medical journals has ready-to-adapt wording.

Never cite an AI tool as the source of a fact. Go to the primary source and cite that. JAMA's author instructions also say AI tools should not be used to generate or format references, because of accuracy problems. Studies have documented fabricated and inaccurate references in ChatGPT-generated medical text, so check every reference against PubMed or Crossref before you submit. CliniPaper does this automatically for each item in your list.

How do in-text citations work in AMA style?

AMA uses superscript numbers. Where the number sits depends on the punctuation next to it:

Two more rules:

• Do not put a superscript citation directly after a number or a unit, where it can be read as an exponent. Write "26 patients⁵", not "26⁵".
• Number a reference cited first in a table or figure legend from where that table or figure is first mentioned in the text.

How do you abbreviate journal names in AMA?

Use the abbreviation from the NLM Catalog (Journals referenced in the NCBI databases), the same one PubMed shows. Search the full journal name and copy the "NLM Title Abbreviation" field. The abbreviations have no internal periods (N Engl J Med, Am J Obstet Gynecol, JAMA Netw Open). One-word titles are never abbreviated (Lancet, Cureus, Neurology). If a journal is not in the NLM Catalog, chapter 13 of the AMA Manual explains how to build an abbreviation, and writing the full title is always acceptable.

Do you italicize journal titles in AMA?

Yes. The abbreviated journal name is italic, and so is a book title. Article titles, chapter titles and web page titles are not italic, and AMA does not put them in quotation marks. Only the journal name is italic in a journal reference: the year, volume, issue and pages stay in roman type.

AMA vs Vancouver vs APA: what is the difference?

AMA and Vancouver are both numbered styles and look alike. APA is an author-date style used mainly in psychology, nursing and the social sciences. Our Vancouver referencing guide covers the NLM rules in detail.

The quick answer to "AMA vs APA": AMA numbers sources and keeps the text uncluttered, while APA puts author and year in the sentence. Few clinical journals use APA, so check the instructions for authors before you pick a style.

Worked example: fixing a reference list (synthetic draft)

Here is a synthetic draft reference, the kind a reference manager set to the wrong style or a quick copy from a website produces:

1. Page, M.J., McKenzie, J.E., Bossuyt, P.M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T.C., Mulrow, C.D. et al. (2021) "The PRISMA 2020 Statement: An Updated Guideline for Reporting Systematic Reviews", British Medical Journal, 372, n71. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71.

What needs fixing:

1. Initials: remove the periods and the comma after the surname (Page MJ).
2. More than 6 authors: keep the first 3 and add et al.
3. Move the year to after the journal name, with no parentheses.
4. Title: no quotation marks, sentence case.
5. Journal: the NLM abbreviation "BMJ", in italics.
6. DOI: "doi:" prefix, no URL form, no final period.

Corrected:

1. Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ. 2021;372:n71. doi:10.1136/bmj.n71

Common mistakes reviewers flag

Fix these before you write the cover letter for your journal submission. Reference errors are easy for an editor to spot, and they do not make a good first impression.