Skip to Main Content

AMA Style Guide

AMA Guide

AMA Resources

AMA Style

American Medical Association (AMA) style is commonly used by writers in the medical field.  This guide is based on the 2020 11th edition of the American Medical Association Style Guide. Please refer to the manual if you have any questions.

Learning how to cite may seem like a daunting task. However, it is well worth it in the end for several reasons:

  • To avoid plagiarism 
  • To show academic honesty 
  • To allow others to learn more about your topic.
  • To allow the reader to conduct their own research from your work
  • Not "common knowledge"

Whether you choose to add a direct quotation to your paper or merely paraphrase someone else's idea, you must cite any work that did not come from you.  That includes but is not limited to text, images, computer code and charts.

Remember when in doubt, cite it!

In-Text Citation

References in the text of your paper

  • An in-text citation consists of a superscript number that corresponds to the relevant number on your numbered AMA reference page
  • If the author is named in the sentence, the citation number immediately follows the author name. 

             Flygare 3 concludes that….

  • If the author is not named in the sentence, the citation number appears at the end of the sentence immediately following the period.

             ….was reflected in the patients glucose levels.1

  • The in-text citation should be immediately after a commas and periods but before colons or semicolons

           ….the studies were recorded as follows 5,6:

Adapted from the South College AMA Libguide