What's New in the 11th Edition?
In 2020, a new edition of the AMA Manual of Style was released. Below is a quick guide to show some of the updates that have been made in the style manual. This is a quick preview with content taken from the article by Connie Manno and Annette Flanagin5.
Additionally, each chapter starts with a section of updates outlining changes and when they happened. We've included an example below:
UPDATE: In chapter 11.1, Correct and Preferred Usage, the term mutations was edited to sequence variations in the entry for “classic, classical” to be consistent with style policy as explained in chapter 14.6.1.1.1. This change was made May 28, 2020.
1.0 Types of Articles
- Updated to include a complete list of study types
- Specific reporting guidelines are included for each study type
3.0 References
- Specific guidance on various digital publications; electronic references; data and databases citations; repositories; and social media, apps, audio, and video citations
- No longer include publisher's location in references for books and reports
- For items with DOIs or URLs, no longer need to include a period at the end to avoid linking issues
7.0 Grammar
- Updated guidance on "frequent stumbling blocks"
- Subsection on the use of they as a singular pronoun
- Especially helpful when patient identity may be an issue
4.0 Tables, Figures, and Multimedia
- Left alignment for all data is preferred
- New full-color examples have been added for figure types
5.0 Ethics & Legal Considerations
- Added policies regarding recommendations for team science authorship,
- How to manage co-first and co-last authors,
- 2 co-corresponding authors are now permitted,
- New examples of scientific misconduct,
- Descriptions of various peer-review models,
- Definitions of public and open access publication models,
- Updates on copyright and publication licenses,
- How authors and editors are responsible for protecting research participants and patients privacy and rights, particularly in the area of publication and social media.
11.0 Correct and Preferred Usage
- Updated guidance on correct and preferred usage in medical and health publications.
- New terms related to addiction have been added
- Emphasis on patient-first language, proper usage for reporting sex and gender, avoiding using socioeconomic status (like poor, unemployed) – prefer to use terms like "low income" or "no income," etc.
- New abbreviations
19.0 Study Design and Statistics
- This chapter and corresponding statistical term glossary have been updated with new terms and definitions
- An expanded definition of bias has been added, as well as guidance on the proper use of P values had been added
