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

Bohannon J. Scientific societies. Torture report prompts APA apology. Science. 2015;349(6245):221-222.

A journal article with 2 authors

Yan WB, Fan H. Single-photon quantum router with multiple output ports. Sci Rep. 2014;4:4820.

A journal article with 3 authors

Nieder A, Freedman DJ, Miller EK. Representation of the quantity of visual items in the primate prefrontal cortex. Science. 2002;297(5587):1708-1711.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Shimojima M, Miyazawa T, Ikeda Y, et al. Use of CD134 as a primary receptor by the feline immunodeficiency virus. Science. 2004;303(5661):1192-1195.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Coulson J. Sustainable Use of Wood in Construction. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.

An edited book

Beltrán M, Knottenbelt W, Bradley J, eds. Computer Performance Engineering: 12th European Workshop, EPEW 2015, Madrid, Spain, August 31 - September 1, 2015, Proceedings. Vol 9272. 1st ed. 2015. Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Kim DJ, Zhang D. The Effects of Sense of Presence, Sense of Belonging, and Cognitive Absorption on Satisfaction and User Loyalty toward an Immersive 3D Virtual World. In: Sharman R, Rao HR, Raghu TS, eds. Exploring the Grand Challenges for Next Generation E-Business: 8th Workshop on E-Business, WEB 2009, Phoenix, AZ, USA, December 15, 2009, Revised Selected Papers. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. Springer; 2011:30-43.

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. Scientists Create Amazing 3D Cast Of Renowned Philosopher’s Brain. IFLScience. May 8, 2017. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/scientists-create-amazing-3d-cast-of-renowned-philosophers-brain/

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. National Aero-Space Plane: A Need for Program Direction and Funding Decisions. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1993.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Rahmani M. On the Calculation of Time-Domain Impulse-Response of Systems from Band-Limited Scattering-Parameters Using Wavelet Transform. Doctoral dissertation. Mississippi State University; 2017.

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

Kanter J. Split, Then Talk Trade, Europe Tells the British. New York Times. March 31, 2017:A8.

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