AMA citation style requires that journal titles be abbreviated for references. Unfortunately, you don't get to make up your own abbreviations - you must use the abbreviations put forth by the National Library of Medicine. To find the correct abbreviation for a journal follows these steps:
Either Google "nlm journal catalog" or type in the URL http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals.
Type in the full title of the journal, using quotations marks at the beginning and end: "Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics"
If there is more than one title in the list, browse to find the title you are looking for.
Once you find the correct title, find the second line below the journal title for the NLM Title Abbreviation: J Acad Nutr Diet
This is the journal title abbreviation to use for the reference citation. Note that there is no punctuation in the abbreviated title.
If the NLM Catalog does not have a record for a specific journal, simply use the entire unabbreviated title in the reference citation. For example, the NLM Catalog does not have a record for the journal Archives of Agronomy & Soil Science, even though this journal publishes some articles on nutrition.
If you have only the abbreviation for a journal title and you need to unabbreviate it, you can likewise search the abbreviated title to get to the full title. For example a search for "J Int Soc Sports Nutr" finds the following title:
