How to cite RULA

RULA was published by Lynn McAtamney and E. Nigel Corlett in Applied Ergonomics in 1993. That paper is the citation you want — not this website. Pick your style below and copy it.

Authors: McAtamney, L. and Corlett, E.N.
Title: RULA: a survey method for the investigation of work-related upper limb disorders
Journal: Applied Ergonomics, 1993, volume 24, issue 2, pages 91–99
DOI: 10.1016/0003-6870(93)90080-S
PMID: 15676903

Ready-made references

APA (7th edition)

McAtamney, L., & Corlett, E. N. (1993). RULA: A survey method for the investigation of work-related upper limb disorders. Applied Ergonomics, 24(2), 91–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/0003-6870(93)90080-S

Harvard

McAtamney, L. and Corlett, E.N. (1993) 'RULA: a survey method for the investigation of work-related upper limb disorders', Applied Ergonomics, 24(2), pp. 91–99. doi: 10.1016/0003-6870(93)90080-S.

Vancouver

McAtamney L, Corlett EN. RULA: a survey method for the investigation of work-related upper limb disorders. Appl Ergon. 1993;24(2):91-9. doi:10.1016/0003-6870(93)90080-S

MLA (9th edition)

McAtamney, Lynn, and E. Nigel Corlett. "RULA: A Survey Method for the Investigation of Work-Related Upper Limb Disorders." Applied Ergonomics, vol. 24, no. 2, 1993, pp. 91–99.

BibTeX

@article{mcatamney1993rula,
  title   = {RULA: a survey method for the investigation of work-related upper limb disorders},
  author  = {McAtamney, Lynn and Corlett, E. Nigel},
  journal = {Applied Ergonomics},
  volume  = {24},
  number  = {2},
  pages   = {91--99},
  year    = {1993},
  doi     = {10.1016/0003-6870(93)90080-S}
}

RIS (EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero)

TY  - JOUR
AU  - McAtamney, Lynn
AU  - Corlett, E. Nigel
TI  - RULA: a survey method for the investigation of work-related upper limb disorders
JO  - Applied Ergonomics
VL  - 24
IS  - 2
SP  - 91
EP  - 99
PY  - 1993
DO  - 10.1016/0003-6870(93)90080-S
ER  -

Citing this website as well

You normally only need the 1993 paper. If your work depends on the fact that the assessment was scored with this particular tool — for example when reporting how the scores in a study were produced — you can add the site as a secondary reference:

This tool

rula.co.uk (2026) RULA — Rapid Upper Limb Assessment [online tool]. Available at: https://rula.co.uk/ (Accessed: [the date you accessed it]).

Reading the paper

The full text is published by Elsevier and is not hosted here. It is available through its DOI, and most universities provide access through their library. The about page summarises the method, the worksheet page has the scoring sheet as a free PDF, and what a RULA score means covers interpreting the result.

A note on REBA

If you are citing REBA rather than RULA, the paper you want is Hignett, S. and McAtamney, L. (2000) 'Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA)', Applied Ergonomics, 31(2), pp. 201–205. The two methods are compared on the RULA vs REBA page.