CH 126/128: General Chemistry I & II Lab (Honors): Cite Sources (ACS Style)

Citation style used in chemistry developed by the American Chemical Society (ACS).

• ACS Style Quick Guide
• ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication

References are covered in Section 4.3 of the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication.

Complimentary tool for searching journal titles and abbreviations for sources indexed by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS).

• CAS Source Index (CASSI)

Ask a question to get help from a librarian with researching a topic, citing your sources, or using a citation manager.

Schedule an appointment to get help from a librarian with researching a topic, citing your sources, or using a citation manager.

Plagiarism is the act of presenting the words, ideas, results, or images of another as your own.  To avoid plagiarism, credit sources by adding in-text citations with matching references formatted in ACS Style.

In-text citations appear within the body of the paper and identify the cited works by number.  For more information, consult Section 4.3.2 (Creating References) of the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication.

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.

• Parenthetical 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.  (To simultaneously cite more than one paper by the same author with different coauthors, use the last name of the most prominent author(s) followed by "and co-workers" or "and colleagues".)

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.  Use a hyphen to indicate a consecutive range of three or more.

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

References appear at the end of the paper in a list and provide the information necessary for the reader to identify and retrieve each work cited in the text.  For more information, consult Section 4.3.3 (ACS Style Quick Guide), Section 4.3.4 (Citation Elements), and Section 4.3.5 (Reference Formatting & Examples by Source Types) of the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication.

Use the reference template below for journal articles:

Author 1; Author 2; …; Author 10; et al. Title of the Article. Journal Title Abbreviation year of publication, volume number (issue number), page range. DOI: number

Huang, X.; Ma, S. Allenation of Terminal Alkynes with Aldehydes and Ketones. Acc. Chem. Res. 2019, 52 (5), 1301-1312. DOI: 10.1021/acs.accounts.9b00023

Follow the element rules below:

Author

• Author names are listed in the order in which they are given in the publication
• List each name in inverted form (family name/surname then first and middle initials then any qualifier)  [Jackson, D. R., Jr.]
• Include first 10 author names in a reference. Separate the names from one another by semicolons. After the 10th name, place a semicolon followed by "et al."  [first nine authors; Millar, T. J.; et al.]

Article Title

• Use title case for capitalization (all major words as well as first word in the title and subtitle are capitalized)  [Game of Thrones Science: Sword Making and Valyrian Steel.]

Journal Title

• Abbreviate journal name according to Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index (one word journal names are not abbreviate and use complete journal title if not in CASSI)  [Acc. Chem. Res.; Science]
• Italicize abbreviated or full journal title

Publication Year

• Bold year of publication and comma  [2019,]

Volume/Issue Numbers

• Italicize volume number but not issue number which is enclosed in parentheses  [52 (5)]
• Use "Suppl." for supplements  [49 (Suppl. 1)]
• Use "Article ASAP" if source does not have volume/issue/page numbers due to being an early publication and include access date  [Chem. Res. Toxicol. 2019, Article ASAP. DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrestox.9b00354 (accessed 2019-11-21).]

Page Numbers

• Use article or elocation number if source does not have page numbers  [Phys. Rev. B 2019, 100 (2), 020503.]

DOI Number

• Find DOI number on database record, article home page, or first page of article (DOIs start with the number 10 [10.1021/acs.accounts.9b00023] so prefix [https://doi.org/] may need to be removed unless hyperlinked DOIs [https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.accounts.9b00023] are okay with instructor)

Reference list appears at the end of the paper.  For more information, consult Section 4.3.2 (Creating References - Creating a Reference List) of the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication.

Follow the formatting instructions from your instructor or follow the guidelines below from the style guide (may be adapted for student papers):

• Heading for the section is References (in bold)
• References are listed in numerical order of first mention in the text
• Each entry starts with the number followed by a period, a space, and then the reference
• Section is single-spaced
• No lines of the reference are indented

Below is a sample reference list:

References
1. Sprung, M. A. Summary of the Reactions of Aldehydes with Amines. Chem. Rev. 1940, 26, 297-338. DOI: 10.1021/cr60085a001
2. Goldstein, S. W.; Cross, A. V. Solvent-Free Reductive Amination: An Organic Chemistry Experiment. J. Chem. Educ. 2015, 92 (7), 1214-1216. DOI: 10.1021/ed5006618
3. Mizuta, T.; Sakaguchi, S.; Ishii, Y. Catalytic Reductive Alkylation of Secondary Amine with Aldehyde and Silane by an Iridium Compound. J. Org. Chem. 2005, 70 (6), 2195-2199. DOI: 10.1021/jo0481708