American Medical Association
Manual of Style : A Guide for Authors
and Editors (AMA) by The American
Medical Association
If You Are An Academic Physician You Cannot Miss It!
This indispensable guide to style has long been the standard for
publishers, advertising, and the medical community. This ninth edition
features: -Expanded chapters on legal and ethical concerns in
publishing, statistical terms, and nomenclature -An updated and
expanded reference section -A complete glossary of publishing terms
-A new typography section -New policies for eponyms and numbers
style -A larger section pertaining to electronic referencing -Broadened
coverage of tables and figures -Current information on electronic
publishing and copyright issues

Personal Review: American Medical Association Manual of
Style : A Guide for Authors and Editors (AMA) by The American
Medical Association
The specific goal of the American Medical Association Manual of Style: A
Guide for Authors and Editors is to codify and collect the myriad
instructions, rules, and dictums that AMA applies to the many journals,
books, and other publications that are printed under its imprint. The more
general goal, perhaps not stated, is to broaden the influence of those
standards so they encompass more of the medical publishing community.
The book, developed by a committee of writers, editors, and publishers, is
organized around five major categories, Preparing an Article for
Publication, Style, Terminology, Measurement and Quantitation, and
Technical Information. Each of these categories is, in turn, broken down
into chapters that probe various aspects of each category. Finding
information is easy, and the writers have used examples generously to
make the points clear. The first section, Preparing an Article for
Publication, is, naturally slanted more toward authors and those who toil to
prepare author?s manuscripts for publication. There are many guidelines
offering advice that ranges from preparing the abstract to preparing any of
six different types of acknowledgments. Editors and copy editors would do
well to review this chapter as well. The section on citing Web sites alone is
crucial reading. I suspect, but cannot prove, that many researchers will not
read deeply beyond the opening chapter, feeling that the remaining
sections are more the province of copy editors and journal editors.
Perhaps there is some merit to that line of thinking, but all authors in the
medical sciences would benefit from the copious advice here, and the
better writers, I?m sure, do follow the principles of grammar, punctuation,
capitalization, and usage set forth in the section on style. Common
mistakes, such as confusing case and patient, redundancies, and the ever
so ticklish topic of race/ethnicity are some of the many points discussed
thoroughly. The section on terminology is so mind-bogglingly detailed that
all one can hope to do is remember that the AMA Style Guide will almost
always have the answer if you have a question about an abbreviation (how
many times is something mistakenly called an acronym instead of an
initialism?), medical nomenclature (a huge chapter that is the heart of the
book), or eponyms (which, thanks to this guide may now be a topic we can
quit haggling over).Measurement and Quantitation continue to be a bane
for many writers and editors, though without delving too much into
specifics, let?s say that this section will answer most questions but not
without careful reading and perhaps a look at the Chicago Manual of Style
for a bit clearer presentation on this topic. The chapter on statistics, unique
to this guide, notes how to express confidence intervals, confirms that the
word Student in Student t test is capitalized (sorry, but this text editor on
Amazon.com does not display the italic t), provides a list of statistical
symbols and abbreviations, and offers valuable tips about displaying
equations. And those examples barely hint at the wealth of information
here. A final section on technical information provides a thumbnail guide to
good layout and design of printed materials, worthy sets both of

copyediting marks and proofreading marks (which are no doubt often
photocopied and posted in a visible location), an excellent primer on how
to edit hard copy, and a glossary of publishing terms. If you are a medical
writer or editor, odds are that you already either have a copy of this guide
or you borrow one from a colleague. If you are an aspiring medical
communicator, you will need your own copy so you can mark in it, attach
tabs, and leave open on your desk.
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