CH 119: General Chemistry II Lab (Honors): Cite References

ACS Style Guide: Effective Communication of Scientific Information  (3rd edition)
American Chemical Society
Ref QD8.5 .A25 2006

Chapter 14 covers citing references.

Complimentary tool for searching journal titles and abbreviations for sources indexed by CAS since 1907.

CAS Source Index (CASSI) Search Tool
Chemical Abstracts Service

This style by the American Chemical Society (ACS) may be used for papers and posters in the field of chemistry.

To cite sources in ACS style, two parts are needed:

• Citation

Whenever you refer to the work of another person, you must provide a citation within the text indicating the source.

• Reference

Whenever you refer to a source within the text, you must provide a matching reference with full bibliographic information.

Failure to cite sources and/or improper citation of referenced works is considered plagiarism which violates the UAB Academic Honor Code.

Select one of the two methods below to format in-text citations:

• Superscript Numbers

Primary and secondary amines are especially suited to the study of addition reactions of aldehydes since they contain one or two easily detachable hydrogen atoms.¹

Sprung¹ states that primary and secondary amines are especially suited to the study of addition reactions of aldehydes since they contain one or two easily detachable hydrogen atoms.

• Italic Numbers

Primary and secondary amines are especially suited to the study of addition reactions of aldehydes since they contain one or two easily detachable hydrogen atoms (1).

Sprung (1) states that primary and secondary amines are especially suited to the study of addition reactions of aldehydes since they contain one or two easily detachable hydrogen atoms.

Follow the citation rules below:

• Start with 1 and number consecutively.  If reference is repeated, do not give it a new number (use original number).

• Whenever authors are named, give both names joined by the word "and" if reference has two authors or give only the first name listed followed by "et al." if reference has three or more authors.

Goldstein and Cross²
Goldstein and Cross (2)
Mizuta et al.³
Mizuta et al. (3)

• When citing more than one reference in same place, list numbers in ascending order and separate them by commas (without spaces as superscripts, with spaces on line) or use an en dash indicate a consecutive range of three or more.

several investigations^1-3,5,6
several investigations (1-3, 5, 6)