How to Use an AMA Citation Generator (11th Edition)

An AMA citation generator turns a DOI or PubMed ID into a numbered reference in a couple of seconds, and most of what it hands back is correct. The errors sit in places the software cannot see: the journal abbreviation, the capitalization of the article title, the page range, and anything the 11th edition of the AMA Manual of Style (2020) changed from the 10th. This guide gives you the AMA 11 formats to check against, the exact steps for generating a reference, and ten checks to run before the reference list goes into your paper. The generated examples below come from real DOI imports, compared line by line against university library guides to the 11th edition.

What a generator can know, and what it cannot

A citation generator does two jobs. First it fetches metadata: the record a publisher deposited with CrossRef when it registered the DOI, or the record the National Library of Medicine keeps in PubMed. Then it pours that record into a style template. For AMA, the template is a CSL file named "American Medical Association 11th edition", the same file Zotero's style repository publishes.

The template is rarely the problem. When we fed hand-entered, clean metadata for two journal articles and an edited book through the AMA 11 template, the output matched the University of South Carolina's AMA 11 citation guide character for character, down to the missing period after the DOI. The problems come from the metadata. Publisher records often carry titles in Title Case, list the full journal name where AMA wants the NLM abbreviation, and sometimes give page numbers that differ from the printed article. The generator has no way to know any of that is wrong.

Here is what the same journal article looks like when it is imported from its DOI, compared with the reference the South Carolina guide prints for it:

` Imported from the DOI: Ceraulo AS, Bytomski JR. Infectious Mononucleosis Management in Athletes. Clinics in Sports Medicine. 2019;38(4):555-561. doi:10.1016/j.csm.2019.06.002

As printed in the University of South Carolina AMA 11 guide: Ceraulo AS, Bytomski JR. Infectious mononucleosis management in athletes. Clin Sports Med. 2019;38(4):551-561. doi:10.1016/j.csm.2019.06.002 `

Three differences, none of them caused by the template. The title kept the publisher's Title Case. The journal name came through in full because the CrossRef record lists "Clinics in Sports Medicine" as both the full and the short title. And the CrossRef record gives the first page as 555 while the library guide gives 551. They cannot both be right, and only the article's own first page can settle which. That is the pattern for the rest of this guide: trust the generator for punctuation and element order, then check the metadata yourself.

The AMA 11th edition formats to check against

You need the target before you can check the output. These patterns come from the South Carolina guide and the University of Southern California's AMA 11 reference list guide, both written against the 11th edition.

Journal article

Author AA, Author BB, Author CC. Title of article. Abbreviated Journal Title. Year;Volume(Issue):Pages. doi:10.xxxx/xxxxx

USC's guide adds a detail generators sometimes break: there is no period at the end of the DOI or URL. If the article has no DOI, drop the DOI and end the reference with "Accessed" plus the date and the URL:

Hassler WC. Industrial diseases and the public health. Cal West Med. 1929;30(6):413-416. Accessed July 30, 2020. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1656206/pdf/calwestmed00186-0037.pdf

Articles that use an article number instead of pages put the number where the pages go:

Mars B, Gunnell D, Biddle L, et al. Prospective associations between internet use and poor mental health: a population-based study. PLoS One. 2020;15(7):e0235889. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0235889

Book and chapter

Ford CL, Griffith DM, Bruce MA, Gilbert KL, eds. Racism: Science & Tools for the Public Health Professional. American Public Health Association Press; 2019.

A chapter adds the chapter author and title, then "In:" and the editors, and ends with the year, a colon, and the chapter's page range. Book titles take title case. Article and chapter titles take sentence case, capitalizing only the first word, proper names, names of trials or study groups, and abbreviations (USC's wording).

Website

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health equity considerations and racial and ethnic minority groups. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Updated July 24, 2020. Accessed August 3, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/...

Authors and in-text numbers

List every author for one to six authors. At seven or more, list the first three and then "et al." In the text, sources get superscript numbers in the order you first cite them, and a source keeps its first number every time it comes back. South Carolina's placement rule: superscripts go "just outside of periods and commas but inside of colons and semicolons." Several sources at once are separated by commas, with a hyphen for a run of consecutive numbers:

As previously reported,¹⁻³,⁶,⁸ the effect ...

When you name authors in the sentence, two authors both appear (Taylor and Washington²) and three or more become the first author plus "et al" (Taylor et al³). The superscript stays either way. For the full in-text rules with more examples, our AMA encyclopedia article guide walks through placement and repeat citations.

Step by step: generating an AMA reference

1. Pick "AMA 11th edition" before you search. Our generator still offers the 10th edition, and so does Zotero's style repository. They are different templates and produce different references (see check 7).
2. Search by identifier, never by title. Paste the DOI or the PubMed ID. A title search can match a preprint, a correction notice, or a different paper with the same title. A PMID is the number at the end of a PubMed URL; a DOI starts with "10."
3. Open the article next to the generated reference. You need the PDF's first page for the next ten checks: the printed title, the page range, the volume and issue, and the author list.
4. Run the checks below and fix the reference in place. Edit the generated text directly; the fixes are small.
5. Number the list in citation order. The generator numbers sources in the order you added them. AMA numbers them in the order they first appear in the paper, so renumber the list once the draft is final. USC's guide: "Order citations as they appear in your paper."
6. Insert the superscripts last. Once the numbering is settled, add the superscripts to your text and check every number against the list.

Ten checks to run on generator output

The first five are metadata problems a DOI or PubMed import can bring in; the rest come from template settings and from references copied out of older papers.

1. Convert the article title to sentence case

CrossRef records often carry the title exactly as the publisher's website displays it. If that is Title Case, the generator passes it through:

Generated: Infectious Mononucleosis Management in Athletes. Fixed: Infectious mononucleosis management in athletes.

Keep the capitals that the sentence-case rule allows: the first word, proper names, trial and study group names, and abbreviations such as HIV or COVID-19. Watch the word after a colon. The DOI record for the Mars article capitalizes "A population-based study" after the colon; the South Carolina guide prints it lowercase.

2. Replace the journal name with its NLM abbreviation

AMA uses the journal abbreviations from the US National Library of Medicine. Look up the journal in the NLM Catalog and use the "NLM Title Abbreviation" field: "Clinics in Sports Medicine" becomes "Clin Sports Med", and "Trends in Cognitive Sciences" becomes "Trends Cogn Sci". If the catalog has no entry for a journal, USC points to section 13.10 of the manual for the standard abbreviations of individual words.

Two details to watch. The abbreviation keeps NLM's capitalization (PLoS One, while the DOI record says "PLoS ONE"). And whether you get the abbreviation at all depends on the import: in our generator, both a DOI import and a PubMed import currently produce the full journal name, so check this one every time.

3. Check the page range against the PDF

The Ceraulo article above came back from its DOI as pages 555-561; the South Carolina guide prints 551-561. Open the article and read the page number on its first page. Where the record and the PDF disagree, the PDF wins. Both library guides write the range with a hyphen and the second number in full (551-561).

4. Delete editors who are not book editors

Some publishers deposit the academic editor who handled the peer review as an "editor" of the article. A generator then prints that person in the reference as if the article were a chapter. The Mars article's DOI record does this:

Generated: Mars B, Gunnell D, Biddle L, et al. Prospective associations between internet use and poor mental health: A population-based study. Abulseoud OA, ed. PLoS ONE. 2020;15(7):e0235889. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0235889 Fixed: Mars B, Gunnell D, Biddle L, et al. Prospective associations between internet use and poor mental health: a population-based study. PLoS One. 2020;15(7):e0235889. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0235889

A journal article reference in AMA 11 has no editor element. If you see "ed." between the article title and the journal, delete it along with the name before it.

5. Count the authors

Six authors: list all six. Seven or more: the first three, then "et al." Generators handle this correctly when the metadata is complete, and the Mars record's seven authors collapsed to three plus "et al." as they should. The failure is incomplete metadata: a record that lists only the first author, or that lists a consortium as an author and drops the individuals. Compare the count with the byline on the PDF. Group authors such as "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention" are written out in full, in the author position.

6. Format the DOI as "doi:" with no space and no final period

AMA 11 writes the DOI as a lowercase prefix with no space: doi:10.1016/j.csm.2019.06.002. Some library guides print "doi: 10..." with a space; South Carolina's examples and our generator use no space, and either way the reference ends without a period. If you pasted a DOI as a full link (https://doi.org/...), convert it back to the prefix form.

7. Make sure the 10th edition did not sneak in

The 11th edition changed two things that show up immediately in generated output. The AMA Style Insider's preview of the 11th edition describes both: URLs moved to the end of the reference, and publisher locations were dropped from book and report references. Run the same book and webpage through both templates and the difference is plain:

` AMA 10: Ford CL, Griffith DM, Bruce MA, Gilbert KL, eds. Racism: Science & Tools for the Public Health Professional. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association Press; 2019. AMA 11: Ford CL, Griffith DM, Bruce MA, Gilbert KL, eds. Racism: Science & Tools for the Public Health Professional. American Public Health Association Press; 2019.

AMA 10: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Measles cases and outbreaks. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html. Accessed October 21, 2026. AMA 11: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Measles cases and outbreaks. CDC. Accessed October 21, 2026. https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html `

A city before the publisher, or a URL followed by "Accessed", means the generator is set to the 10th edition. Switch the style and regenerate the whole list.

8. Label website dates

For a webpage, AMA 11 wants the date labeled: "Published" for the original date, "Updated" for a revision, then "Accessed" for the day you viewed it. A generator only sees a date field, so it prints the date bare ("July 24, 2020.") with no label. Check the page and add the label. When a page shows only a revision date, USC's example states the gap explicitly: "Publication date unavailable. Updated June 6, 2011. Accessed November 3, 2012."

9. Fix titles imported in capitals

Some database exports store titles in all capitals. The template cannot lowercase them reliably, so ALL CAPS TITLE FROM A DATABASE EXPORT comes out exactly like that. Retype it in sentence case (articles, chapters) or title case (books, government documents).

10. Drop the article-type labels the 10th edition used

Older references sometimes carry a bracketed label such as "[letter]" or "[editorial]" after the title. USC notes that the 11th edition removed the suggestion to mark special types of journal material; letters, editorials and comments are now cited exactly like articles. If a reference copied from an older paper carries one of these labels, delete it.

Special cases

Clinical point-of-care databases

UpToDate, StatPearls and drug databases are standard sources in clinical coursework, and a DOI lookup will not produce these references. Build them by hand from the patterns in South College's AMA 11 database formatting page:

` UpToDate: Nieman LK. Measurement of cortisol in serum and saliva. In: Martin KA, ed. UpToDate. UpToDate; 2018. Accessed July 12, 2018. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/measurement-of-cortisol-in-serum-and-saliva

StatPearls: Shamrock AG, Dreyer MA, Varacallo M. Achilles tendon rupture. In: StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing. Updated August 17, 2023. Accessed October 24, 2024. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430844/

Micromedex: Amoxicillin. Micromedex (electronic version). Merative; 2024. Accessed March 15, 2024. https://www.micromedexsolutions.com `

UpToDate's own suggested citation leaves out the URL; South College notes that the AMA Manual recommends including it. StatPearls combines the book-chapter and webpage patterns, so whatever a generator produces for it, check that the chapter title, "In:", the bracketed "[Internet]", and the Updated date all survive.

Cochrane reviews

Cochrane reviews are cited like journal articles with one twist: the year is also the volume, so it appears once, followed by the issue and the review's CD number in place of pages. South College's pattern:

Author InIn, Author InIn. Title of review. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. YEAR(Issue#):CD00XXX. Accessed [date]. doi:10.XXXX/XXXXXXXX.CD00XXXX.pubX

Generators get this one badly wrong. Importing the DOI for the Cochrane review "Exercise for depression" through the AMA 11 template gave:

Generated: Cooney GM, Dwan K, Greig CA, et al. Exercise for depression. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2013;2013(9). doi:10.1002/14651858.cd004366.pub6 Fixed: Cooney GM, Dwan K, Greig CA, et al. Exercise for depression. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013(9):CD004366. Accessed [date]. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD004366.pub6

The year appears twice, the CD number is missing, the journal is unabbreviated, and the DOI was lowercased. Fix all four, and add the date you accessed the review, which South College's pattern includes.

Sources with no author

USC's rule: if there is no named author, follow the style for that kind of source and leave the author field out, so the reference starts with the title. If the author is literally a person called "Anonymous", write "Anonymous" as the name. Most generators get this right for webpages, but check that the website name has not been promoted into the author slot.

AI tools

AI does not go in the reference list. The AMA Manual (section 5.1.12, quoted by USC) says nonhuman artificial intelligence and language models "cannot be listed as authors," and section 5.2.1.1 asks authors to describe AI use in the Acknowledgment section, or in the Methods section when it was part of the research design. The description names the tool, its version, and its manufacturer. A generator offering an "AI chat" source type will produce a reference anyway; for an AMA paper, convert it into an acknowledgment sentence or check your syllabus for the course's own rule.

A source type the manual does not cover

USC's guide is frank about this: the manual "does not include everything." Pick the closest AMA pattern (a webpage for a dashboard, a book for a standalone report) and keep the element order. A generator's "other" or "miscellaneous" type usually drops elements, so building the reference from the nearest pattern is safer.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

• Trusting the journal name. Every DOI import we tested for this guide printed the full journal name where the NLM abbreviation belongs. Look up every journal once and keep a note of the abbreviations you use repeatedly.
• Numbering in the order you collected sources. A generator project keeps the order you added things, and the numbers it shows reflect that order. Renumber by order of first citation in the paper, and reuse the first number when a source comes back.
• Stacking every superscript at the end of a paragraph. USC advises placing the number next to the fact it supports, so the reader can trace each claim to its source.
• Mixing editions in one list. A reference copied from a 2015 paper may be in 10th edition format (city, URL before "Accessed"). Regenerate it in AMA 11 before it joins the list.
• Losing the italics when pasting. The AMA 11 template italicizes the journal abbreviation and book titles. Paste with formatting, or re-italicize after a plain-text paste.
• Citing PubMed as the source. PubMed is where you found the article, not where it was published. The reference cites the journal; the PMID is only the lookup key.

Quick-reference table