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Harvard to AMA converter

Paste Harvard references, get AMA. Free, no sign-up.

Paste references written in Harvard and get them back in AMA, ready to copy into Word or Google Docs. The main changes: author–date in-text citations become numbered citations, your “Reference list” list becomes “References” and the list is numbered in the order of first citation. CiteSwap looks each reference up in the open Crossref catalogue, so authors, years and page numbers come from the publisher’s record rather than being rewritten by hand.

Harvard vs AMA: the same sources side by side

Each example below was formatted by CiteSwap’s engine, exactly as the converter outputs it.

Journal article

Harvard

Suri, T. and Jack, W. (2016) ‘The long-run poverty and gender impacts of mobile money’, Science, 354(6317), pp. 1288–1292. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5309.

In-text: (Suri and Jack, 2016, p. 1290)

AMA

Suri T, Jack W. The long-run poverty and gender impacts of mobile money. Science. 2016;354(6317):1288-1292. doi:10.1126/science.aah5309

In-text: 1(p1290)

Book

Harvard

Achebe, C. (1958) Things fall apart. London: Heinemann.

In-text: (Achebe, 1958, p. 1290)

AMA

Achebe C. Things Fall Apart. Heinemann; 1958.

In-text: 1(p1290)

Web page

Harvard

World Health Organization (2023) Malaria. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria (Accessed: 1 October 2026).

In-text: (World Health Organization, 2023, p. 1290)

AMA

World Health Organization. Malaria. December 4, 2023. Accessed October 1, 2026. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria

In-text: 1(p1290)

Key differences between Harvard and AMA

11 of 12 rules differ; they are listed first.

RuleHarvardAMA
Reference list headingReference listReferences
In-text citationsauthor and year in parentheses, e.g. (Suri and Jack, 2016)superscript numbers, e.g. ¹, in the order sources are first cited
List orderAlphabetical by first author’s surnameNumbered in the order of first citation
Author namesSurname and initials, joined with “and”, e.g. Suri, T. and Jack, W.Surname and initials without full stops or spaces, e.g. Suri T, Jack W
Many authorsFour or more authors: first author followed by “et al.”Seven or more authors: first three followed by “et al”
DateStraight after the authors, in parentheses, with no full stop: (2016)After the journal name: 2016;354(6317):1288-1292
Article titlesIn single quotation marks, sentence casePlain text, sentence case
ItalicsJournal names and book titlesJournal and book titles
Journal namesFull journal name in title caseAbbreviated journal name (NLM abbreviations), in italics
Page rangesFull page range with “pp.”, e.g. pp. 1288–1292Full page range with a hyphen, e.g. 1288-1292
DOIs and links“Available at:” before the DOI or URL, and “(Accessed: date)” for web pagesDOI written as “doi:10.1126/…”
Title capitalisation(same)Sentence caseSentence case

When to use AMA

AMA is used by medical journals such as JAMA and by many medicine, pharmacy and public-health programmes. It is published by the American Medical Association; CiteSwap follows the 11th edition (2020).

Harvard is more common in business, economics, the social sciences, while AMA is usual in medicine, health sciences, pharmacy. If your department or journal names a style, always follow it.

Harvard to AMA: frequently asked questions

How do I convert Harvard citations to AMA?

Paste your Harvard reference list into the box above (one reference per line, numbered, or separated by blank lines), check that “From” says Harvard or Auto-detect and “To” says AMA, then press Convert. You can also paste DOIs, BibTeX or RIS. Copy the result or download it for Word.

How do in-text citations change from Harvard to AMA?

Harvard uses author and year in parentheses, e.g. (Suri and Jack, 2016). AMA uses superscript numbers, e.g. ¹, in the order sources are first cited. For the same article and page: Harvard gives (Suri and Jack, 2016, p. 1290), AMA gives 1(p1290).

What is the reference list called in AMA?

In Harvard the list is headed “Reference list”; in AMA it is “References”. Change the heading when you paste the converted list into your document.

Does the order of my references change in AMA?

Yes. Harvard: alphabetical by first author’s surname. AMA: numbered in the order of first citation. CiteSwap keeps the order you pasted, so paste them in the order you first cite them.

How are author names written in AMA?

AMA: Surname and initials without full stops or spaces, e.g. Suri T, Jack W. Harvard: Surname and initials, joined with “and”, e.g. Suri, T. and Jack, W. When a reference is matched in Crossref, CiteSwap uses full first names from the publisher’s record, so it can produce either form.

Is the Harvard to AMA converter accurate?

Each reference is matched against the Crossref catalogue (over 150 million records) and only accepted automatically when the title, year and first author agree. Anything uncertain is marked “Needs review” so you can pick the right match, and references that aren’t in the catalogue, like websites or local journals, are parsed from your text and marked so you can check them.