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 references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles 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

Agarwal VK. “Diamond ceiling” for asian americans. Science. 2000;290(5499):2075a.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kieffer SW, Jakosky BM. Planetary science. Enceladus--oasis or ice ball? Science. 2008;320(5882):1432-1433.

A journal article with 3 authors

Oxborrow M, Breeze JD, Alford NM. Room-temperature solid-state maser. Nature. 2012;488(7411):353-356.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Lee SJ, Evers S, Roeder D, et al. Mannose receptor-mediated regulation of serum glycoprotein homeostasis. Science. 2002;295(5561):1898-1901.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Corsi P, Dulieu M. The Marketing of Technology Intensive Products and Services. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

Coates ARM, ed. Antibiotic Resistance. Vol 211. Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

Gunderman RB. Philosophical Considerations in Educational Assessment. In: Hibbert KM, Chhem RK, Deven T van, Wang SC, eds. Radiology Education: The Evaluation and Assessment of Clinical Competence. Springer; 2012:49-54.

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

Davis J. How A Dog Copes With Stress Depends On Its Temperament. IFLScience. July 22, 2015. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/how-dog-copes-stress-depends-its-temperament/

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. ADP Planning: FDA’s Plans to Improve Processing of Medical Device and Drug Applications. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1989.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Schiffbauer LW. The Pursuit of Self-Esteem: A Help or a Hindrance in Thriving in the Workplace? Doctoral dissertation. Capella University; 2013.

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

Brantley B. These Avian Marauders Are Less Than Fierce. New York Times. September 16, 2016:C8.

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