By Alessandra Suuberg, Decency LLC
Whether you’re heading back to school, launching a bio-medical website, or preparing to navigate the manuscript submission process with scientific journals, chances are you’re running into questions about citation styles and compilation of reference lists.
Which style is the correct one to use for your submission, post, or assignment?
Which Style Is the “Correct” Style?
In my own experience, there are a lot of different styles in the academic, scientific, and healthcare worlds to choose from—and the correct one to use for any given task can depend on the preferences of, e.g., your field, your professor, or the journal receiving your manuscript submission.
An example from my own life pre-Decency: As a student in law school and, later, working as a lawyer, I learned that lawyers preparing legal documents or submitting manuscripts for publication often format their citations according to Bluebook rules. The Bluebook is a style manual compiled by the editors of major law reviews. Its 21st edition came out in 2021. At least at my own law school, in the early 2010s, learning “how to Bluebook” was mandatory and received substantial attention across coursework and work on student publications.
Later, transitioning to science and healthcare, I had to familiarize myself with new citation styles.
For example, turning today to a random piece from the home page of Nature’s (a famous international science and technology journal’s) website, one sees the following:
Azoulay, P., Graff Zivin, J. & Manso, G. RAND J. Econ. 42, 527–554 (2011).
What is this? (When in doubt, look for a journal’s formatting guidelines for authors.)
Now, turning to at a piece from the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) home page today, one might see:
What is this and why is it so different from the previous citation? (Similar to Nature, JAMA provides publication guidelines for prospective authors.)
Appropriately, the Journal of the American Medical Association clarifies in its own guidelines that it would like authors to use “AMA” (American Medical Association) style when listing their references.
Incidentally, AMA style is a well-known citation style in the medical field. More information on this citation style is provided in the style list below.
In summary, choosing the correct citation style can be challenging, given the number of possible choices, the fact that commonly-used styles vary between fields, and the possibility that individuals or publications might have preferences that differ from what you (the student or author) have seen or used in the past.
Some potential rules of thumb when choosing:
First, see if the task at hand came with instructions regarding a preferred style. Perhaps this sounds obvious, but first-time authors may not know that journals might be posting their formatting guidelines publicly online. (If you didn’t know this until now, you’re probably not alone.)
Second, if no instructions are available, see if your field has a dominant, preferred citation style. (Similar to the Bluebook rules for legal articles and documents.)
Third, take a look at articles from well-known publications in your field. See if you can identify which style they use and/or if they may be worth using as a model for your own references.
Some Well-Known Citation Styles for Healthcare Publications
The following are some of the citation styles that you may see in medicine, biology, and other healthcare-related fields. This list is not meant to be exhaustive.
Please also note that style guides tend to evolve over time. With that in mind, you may need to check for the latest edition of any guide mentioned below. I am also not vouching for 100% accuracy of every page linked below—so, as always, be sure to compare a few different sources to help ensure that you have complete and correct information.
“AMA Style”
Editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association created the American Medical Association (AMA) style, which today is “internationally recognized and is used throughout disciplines in the health sciences.” The AMA Manual of Style is currently in its 11th edition.
At present, online searches for “AMA style” tend to bring up numerous universities’ referencing guides, providing explanations and examples to help students with their citations. You can perform your own search or check out 11th-edition guides here from James Cook University in Australia (page last visited August 22, 2023; according to the university, AMA style is “a variation of the Vancouver system”), the University of Illinois Chicago, or the University of Central Florida.
“APA Style”
American Psychological Association (APA) style is a “format designed for use within the field of psychology.” According to current information from Purdue University’s online writing lab (https://owl.purdue.edu/), APA style is most often used in the social sciences (psychology, linguistics, sociology, economics, criminology), business, and nursing.
Readers can consult the official APA style website at https://apastyle.apa.org/ or look for university referencing guides, such as these from Southern New Hampshire University or the University of Pittsburgh (each last visited August 22, 2023).
“CSE Style”
According to Dakota State University’s Karl Mundt Library, Council of Science Editors (CSE) style is commonly used in biology and was formerly known as Council of Biology Editors (CBE) style. The library currently offers citation examples here.
According to the College of Central Florida, CSE style is a variant of APA style. The university currently provides some basic guidelines and links to additional resources here.
“NLM Style”
According to current information from Middlebury Libraries, you may see National Library of Medicine (NLM) style used in neuroscience.
More information on NLM style is available here from the National Library of Medicine, Logan University, and the University of Southern California.
Curious about Decency LLC’s own “house style” for citations? Link here for a style guide.
Note: This is the style guide that DLLC uses internally for citations. It does not and will likely never rival AMA style in prominence—so it will likely not be familiar (or acceptable) to your professor, your employer, or the journal receiving your manuscript submission.
Disclaimer: The information and opinions on this site do not include legal advice or the advice of a licensed healthcare provider.