Free tool
AMA citation generator
Get an AMA 11th edition reference and in-text citation from a DOI or a title. No sign-in, and nothing you type is stored.
Generate an AMA citation
What AMA style is for
AMA style comes from the AMA Manual of Style, published by the American Medical Association. It is used in medicine, nursing, pharmacy and the health sciences.
It is a numbered style. Each source gets a number in the order you first cite it, and the in-text citation is that number as a superscript. The reference list at the end is in number order, not alphabetical.
Example: a journal article in AMA
Reference list entry
In-text citation
1
The example is the only source, so its number is 1. In a paper, the first source you cite is 1, the next new one is 2, and a source you cite again keeps its first number. To point to a page, add it in parentheses after the number: 1(p330).
What it can and can't find
The generator looks works up in Crossref and OpenAlex, two large indexes of published research. Journal articles and conference papers with a DOI are covered best.
Websites, most books without a DOI, reports, theses and very new work are often missing, or have thin records. For those, choose “Enter details manually” and type the details from the source itself.
Index records can be wrong or incomplete: a missing issue number, a title in capitals, an author's name spelled another way. Check each citation against the source before you hand it in.
FAQ
- Is the citation generator free?
- Yes. You don't need an account. If you send a lot of searches in a few minutes, the tool asks you to wait a moment before the next one.
- Do you store what I search for?
- No. Your search goes to our server, which looks it up in Crossref and OpenAlex and sends the citations back to your browser. We don't save the search or the results.
- Does it use AI?
- No. It doesn't use a language model. It takes the published record for the work and formats it with standard Citation Style Language (CSL) style files, the same kind many reference managers use.
- Why can't it find my source?
- Crossref and OpenAlex cover journal articles well, but websites, many books, reports, theses and very recent work are often missing. Try the DOI if the work has one, or add an author's surname to the title. If it still isn't found, choose “Enter details manually” and type its author, date, title and the other details from the source.
- Which edition of AMA does it follow?
- The 11th edition of the AMA Manual of Style, the current one.
- Why is the in-text citation just the number 1?
- AMA numbers sources in the order you first cite them. The generator formats one work at a time, so that work is always 1. In your paper, use the number the work has in your own citation order, and set it as a superscript.
- Why isn't the journal name abbreviated?
- AMA abbreviates journal names the way the National Library of Medicine does, for example Psychol Bull. The records the generator reads give the full name, so it keeps the full name. Change it to the abbreviation by hand.
- Why doesn't a report's reference show its report number?
- The AMA style file the generator uses leaves report numbers out. If your guide asks for one, add it after the title by hand.