frequently asked questions

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Q: Should “least squares mean” be hyphenated? Can the acronym LSM be used or is LS preferred?

A: In the glossary in the statistics chapter, you’ll see that there is no hyphen used in “least squares method,” so I would extrapolate from that to say no hyphen is required in “least squares mean.” If this term comes up so frequently in the manuscript that you feel an abbreviation is warranted, we indicate no preference for what that abbreviation is. Just be sure it’s used consistently throughout.—Cheryl Iverson, MA

Questions From Users of the Manual

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Q: If I have a title with a colon, is the first word after the colon capitalized or lowercased?

A: If you are speaking about title and subtitle on the manuscript itself, every major word in the title and subtitle, as well as the first word of title and subtitle, would begin with a capital letter.

Endless and Essential:  The Tug-of-War Over Off-Label Use

If you are speaking about the title and subtitle of a journal article as it appears in the reference list, only the first word of the title and any proper nouns would begin with a capital letter.

19. Incollingo J. Endless and essential:  the tug-of-war over off-label use. Cataract & Refractive Surgery Today. 2016;16(5):19-27.

More about capitalization of titles can be found in chapter 10.—Cheryl Iverson, MA

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Q: Is it necessary to repeat the manufacturer name, city, and country after every repeated mention of a product, or is it sufficient to cite this information only after the first appearance?

A: Mention of the manufacturer’s name after the first mention should be sufficient. Also, please look at our (free) online Updates.

UPDATE:  Manufacturer information for Equipment, Devices, and Reagents:  In section 15.5 (page 583 in the print book), we will no longer require the inclusion of the location of the manufacturer. This is so easy to look up online, should anyone desire more specific details, that we believe it is not necessary to continue to require this. This change was made October 4, 2011.

You’ll see that we no longer require the manufacturer’s location to be included.—Cheryl Iverson, MA

 

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Q: A colleague is adamant about citing page numbers even if the reference is used more than once in a paragraph. Is this necessary?

A: There is a little advice on citing page numbers in the manual, just above section 3.7.

If the author wishes to cite different page numbers from a single reference source at different places in the text, the page numbers are included in the superscript citation and the source appears only once in the list of references.  Note that the superscript may include more than 1 page number, citation of more than 1 reference, or both, and that all spaces are closed up.

Example: These pages showed no sign of proactive sphincteric adduction.3(p21),9

You’ll notice that it’s not mandatory and our style includes, “If the author wishes.”  Page number citation can be helpful to the diligent reader who wants to go to the source cited and find the exact mention of the quoted material.—Cheryl Iverson, MA

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Q: Is it correct to leave “post” as a separate word in the following sentence? “These activities must take place from prelaunch to post launch.”

A: In section 8.3.1 (“When Not to Use Hyphens”), you’ll see the following:

Note that when post is used as a combining adjectival form, as in postmortem examination, it is set closed up. When it is used as an adverb, as in post hoc testing, it is set as 2 separate words.

So in your example, you would not close up “post launch.” However, the meaning of this sentence is ambiguous to me.  I would suggest rephrasing it to avoid an awkward construction and to clarify exactly what interval you are talking about. How about “These activities must take place both before and after launch.”?—Cheryl Iverson, MA

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Q: What guidance can you offer as to the inclusion of white space in a publication? My company prefers that level 1 headings begin on a new page, but if the text beneath the heading is only a single paragraph, wouldn’t it be preferable for that heading and its text to share the page with the preceding or the subsequent heading and text?

A: This is really an individual decision for each publisher/publication. Especially in the days of print-only publications, many journal editors tried to optimize the use of every page as each journal had a page budget per issue/per year. In some of the JAMA Network specialty journals. for instance, the journal editors specifically developed short items that could be placed, as space allowed, at the ends of articles that ended with at least half a page of white space…thereby using every bit of space that they could to provide interesting and educational information to their readers. White space was never (to my knowledge) used within an article in the way you are describing.

In the JAMA Network journals, there is no page break before the major headings in an article (eg, Methods, Results, Discussion). This would indeed create a lot of white space. In books, on the other hand, this is fairly customary…you do see that each chapter begins on a new page.

In conclusion, to start each major part of a journal article on a new page would create a very odd-looking journal with lots of white space scattered willy-nilly throughout. Perhaps the desire to emphasize each major part of an article could be accomplished with some other design consideration (eg, style of headings).—Cheryl Iverson, MA

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Q: I would like to know how to reference a Kindle book.

A: This question was addressed on this very blog on May 7, 2012. We love questions, though, so feel free to send them in as well as using the search box on the top right corner of the blog home page. Also, we are working now on revising the manual for the next edition and we will be including lots more examples of online reference styles.

 

Q: How should an “e-pub ahead of print” reference be cited in the reference list?

A: There are a few examples in the current manual, but we plan to include many more examples of citing electronic documents in the next edition—and we are deep in discussions (some might say “arguments”) about a style change, so stay tuned!  See 3.15.1, examples 14 through 17. Note, however, that we have now dropped the words “ahead of print” in the phrase that appears in brackets.   Here is an example from JAMA Pediatrics:

Keren R, Shah SS, Srivastava R, et al. Comparative effectiveness of intravenous vs oral antibiotics for postdischarge treatment of acute osteomyelitis in children [published online December 15, 2014].  JAMA Pediatr.  doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.2822.

Q: How would I introduce an abbreviation that first appears in a compound word? For example, if my first use of traumatic brain injury was in TBI-related complications?

A: I would recommend the following: traumatic brain injury (TBI)–related injuries. (That’s an en-dash before related.)—Cheryl Iverson, MA

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Q: If the author of a manuscript has died, where in the byline do you place the death dagger? Should it follow the name or should it follow the degrees held by the author?

A: It would follow the author’s name and degrees. There is an example of this in the manual in section 2.3.1.

Q: How should you cite a reference that requires a subscription to access?

A: When we prepared this edition of the manual, we wrestled with the question of whether, in the reference list, it should be noted if a site required a subscription, password, etc. We decided against it. So,  here’s an example of how such a reference might be cited:

Rogol AD. Diagnostic approach to children and adolescents with short stature. UpToDate. http://www.uptodate.com/contents/diagnostic-approach-to-children-and-adolescents-with-short-stature. Accessed July 7, 2015.

Q: What is the correct way to show the name of an institution (as an author’s affiliation) when the name of the institution has changed?

A:  There are several options:

  • …the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (formerly UCLA Medical Center)
  • UCLA Medical Center (now the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA)

I have a slight preference for the second option.—Cheryl Iverson, MA

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Q: I am putting together an annotated bibliography for a manuscript. What is the correct order recommended by the AMA Manual of Style for citing multiple articles by the same author? Is it by date of publication or article title?

A: The JAMA Network journals do not use a name-date style of reference citation. Instead they use a superscript reference citation system. If you look in the 10th edition of the Manual of Style, section 3.6 (Citation), you will see further information on this. So, it matters not the date of publication or the article title. What is key is the order in which the reference is cited in the paper, eg, the first reference to be cited would be reference 1, the second would be reference 2. (And if reference 1 is cited again later in the paper, it would still remain reference 1.)

Q: What do you tell authors who object to the house style your publications follow by saying that “Everybody does X [rather than what you recommend].”?

A: When people respond like this, I find that it’s helpful to look at what a few key style manuals or journals in the field (based on their Instructions for Authors) do in areas in which people have complaints or concerns. If you can put together a little chart (nothing fancy) showing that indeed maybe it is not EVERYBODY who does X, real data can sometimes calm the fevered brow. And sometimes you may find that indeed most others do have a different policy than what your house style recommends. Then it may be time to reconsider your policy. Sometimes this is how style policies change, and that can be a good thing. We learn from our authors just as we hope they learn from us.—Cheryl Iverson, MA

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Q: I am writing on behalf of my editorial department. We are all very curious to know when we should follow the style outlined in 3.13.2, which calls for headline caps and italics for the publication’s title vs the style outlined in 3.15. 5, which in most cases calls for the title to be set in roman and title case. Why, in example 6 in 3.15.5, is the title set like those for 3.13.2? Is there a distinction between bulletins and reports?

A: Perhaps the line here is fine.  In 3.13.2, the examples are all bulletins. These are more like books, hence the cap and italic style you asked about. In 3.15.5, the examples are all reports. These might be booklike but they often are more like journal articles. The advice right before the examples is to use journal style for articles and book style for monographs. Reference 6, which you ask about, seems more booklike as it has a volume number. Sometimes it is really difficult to know what something is. If it is available online, you might look at it and be more easily able to determine what sort of “beast” it is.

Q: To adhere to the guidelines in the AMA Manual of Style must an author document all sources with footnotes in the text in chronological order? It’s my understanding that doing so serves, in essence, as a form of fact checking. Does your manual offer any other other guidance on fact checking?

A: Yes, we recommend that all sources cited in a manuscript be included in the reference list for the manuscript (with a few exceptions, which we recommend citing parenthetically in the text). These are not, however, cited chronologically (if by that you mean from the earliest published to the most recently published) but rather in order of citation in the manuscript (ie, the first reference cited would be reference 1, that cited second would be reference 2, etc; and if a reference is cited several times, it would each time retain its original reference number, so that if reference 2 is not only cited second but also appears later in the manuscript, it would still remain reference 2).

Whether this citation of references constitutes “fact checking” is a bit trickier to be sure of. As our manual states in the chapter on references, “References serve 3 primary purposes—documentation, acknowledgment, and directing or linking the reader to additional resources.” Citing a reference, and thereby crediting another source for the material cited, and also linking the reader to additional resources, is related to fact checking in that a reader could follow that link (ie, go to the reference cited) and make sure that it has been cited accurately. Whether that constitutes fact checking, though, is unclear. It does ensure that the original source has been cited/quoted correctly. But it doesn’t tell a reader if in fact that source is correct.—Cheryl Iverson, MA