How to format your references using the American Medical Writers Association Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for American Medical Writers Association Journal. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Ferry G. The making of an exceptional scientist. Nature. 2010;464(7293):1268-1270.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hekimi S, Guarente L. Genetics and the specificity of the aging process. Science. 2003;299(5611):1351-1354.

A journal article with 3 authors

Comas D, Petit F, Preat T. Drosophila long-term memory formation involves regulation of cathepsin activity. Nature. 2004;430(6998):460-463.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Carlsson F, Stålhammar-Carlemalm M, Flärdh K, Sandin C, Carlemalm E, Lindahl G. Signal sequence directs localized secretion of bacterial surface proteins. Nature. 2006;442(7105):943-946.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

French BA. Chronicles Through the Centuries. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2016.

An edited book

Hüschelrath K, Schweitzer H, eds. Public and Private Enforcement of Competition Law in Europe: Legal and Economic Perspectives. Vol 48. Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Kaviani S, Tellambura C, Krzymień WA. On the Performance of Transmit Antenna Selection with OSTBC in Ricean MIMO Channels. In: Pupolin S, ed. Wireless Communications 2007 CNIT Thyrrenian Symposium. Signals and Communication Technology. Springer US; 2007:39-50.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for American Medical Writers Association Journal.

Blog post

Andrew E. Tweaked Rats Can See Infrared Light. IFLScience. October 28, 2015. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/tweaked-rats-can-see-infrared-light/

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office. More Can Be Done To Improve the Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Donation Program. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1981.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Cuthbertson TH. The Fool’s Replies: Toward a Poetics of Folly in Shakespeare’s Comedies. Doctoral dissertation. Indiana University; 2014.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Liptak A, Walsh MW. Justices Reject Puerto Rico Law in Case on Restructuring Debt. New York Times. June 14, 2016:B3.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference ¹.
This sentence cites two references ^1,2.
This sentence cites four references ^1–4.

About the journal

Full journal title	American Medical Writers Association Journal
ISSN (print)	1075-6361
Scope