Science & Engineering Citation Style Guide: American Chemical Society (ACS)

The American Chemical Society (ACS) style guide is the standard citation style used in Chemistry. This page will help you get started with basic citations, but you can also refer to the ACS Style Guide.

In the time since the second edition of The ACS Style Guide was published, the rapid growth of electronic communication has dramatically changed the scientific, technical, and medical (STM) publication world. This dynamic mode of dissemination is enabling scientists, engineers, and medical practitioners all over the world to obtain and transmit information quickly and easily. An essential constant in this changing environment is the requirement that information remain accurate, clear, unambiguous, and ethically sound.

In Text Citations

There are three ways to cite references in-text. Select one and use in consistently in your paper.

1. Italicized Numbers in Parenthesis

• Ex. The synthesis of the compound has ben described previously (1).

Note: With numerical citations, references should be numbered sequentially. If a reference is repeated, do not give it another number; rather, use the original reference number.

2. Superscript Numbers

• Ex. The synthesis of the compound has been described previously.¹

Note: With numerical citations, references should be numbered sequentially. If a reference is repeated, do not give it another number; rather, use the original reference number.

3. Author and Date in Parenthesis

• Ex. The synthesis of the compound has been described previously (Johnson,1902).

Note: With author name citations, use both names if a reference has two authors (Jones and Smith, 2002). If there are more than two authors, use the first name followed by et al. (Harris et al., 2001).

Bibliography

When writing a bibliography:

• Arrange the references bases on the method used for in-text citations. If numerical citations were used, then arrange references at the end of the paper numerically. If author names wer used, arrange alphabetically.
• All references should end with a period.
• Do not leave blank lines between references.

Print Book with Author(s)

Author 1; Author 2; Author 3; etc. Chapter Title. Book Title, Edition Number; Series Information (if any); Publisher: Place of Publication, Year; Volume Number, Pagination.

Print Book with Editor(s)

Author 1; Author 2; Author 3; etc. Chapter Title. In Book Title, Edition Number; Editor 1, Editor 2, etc., Eds.; Series Information (if any); Publisher: Place of Publication, Year; Volume Number, Pagination

eBook with Author(s)

Author 1; Author 2; Author 3; etc. Book Title [Online]; Series Information (if any); Publisher: Place of Publication, Year; Volume Number, Pagination. URL (accessed Month Day, Year).

eBook with Editor(s)

Author 1; Author 2; Author 3; etc. Chapter Title. In Book Title [Online]; Editor 1, Editor 2, etc., Eds.; Series Information (if any); Publisher: Place of Publication, Year; Volume Number, Pagination. URL (accessed Month Day, Year).

Print Journal Article

Author 1; Author 2; Author 3; etc. Title of Article. Journal Abbreviation Year, Volume, Inclusive Pagination.

Online Journal Article

Author 1; Author 2; Author 3; etc. Title of Article. Journal Abbreviation [Online] Year, Volume, Inclusive pagination or other identifying information. URL (accessed Month Day, Year).

Note: The journal name is an essential component of a periodical reference citation. Abbreviate the name according to the Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index.

Note: These are just some examples, please refer to the ACS Style Manual for more in-depth coverage of citations/references.