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ACS Style Guide - References

This is the general format for citing a journal article, but there are a lot of variations:

Author 1; Author 2; …; Author 10; et al. Title of the Article. Journal Title Abbreviation Year of Publication, volume number (issue number), page numbers. DOI: DOI number (explanatory note, if needed.)

Guidelines

  • Print journal articles are cited the same as online journal articles, but without the DOI.
  • If you have more than 10 authors, use et al. after the 10th author.
  • Journal names are in italics, and abbreviated unless it's a one-word title. Use the CASSI Lookup Tool to find the abbreviation for your journal. If the journal is not listed, just write out the full title.
  • Publication year is in bold, volume number is italicized, and the issue number should be in parentheses.
  • The explanatory note is anything that could help the reader that isn't part of the citation. For example, highlighting whatever was cited is in a supplement, that the article retrieved from a 3rd party aggregator like EBSCO, or that the article is in a language other than English.
  • If the article title has any special characters or formatting, keep those in the title when you cite the source. This includes superscripts, subscripts, Greek letters, and any words that are italicized, including species names.

Also:

  • Some journals don't publish volumes, issues, and/or page numbers. Instead of page numbers, a journal could simply assign numbers to articles upon acceptance may just have an assigned number. For example: this article in Journal of Chemical Physics is part of volume 154, but instead of issues or page numbers it has an article number: 084108.  Or a citation without an issue number would be year, volume, pages/article number. Rather than year, volume (issue), pages.
  • Many articles are now published online before they are assigned to a volume and issue, sometimes months before. These are typically identified by phrases like Just Accepted, Early View, Advance Publication, or In-Press.
    • These articles have undergone peer-review, revised by the authors as needed, and have been accepted by the editors and are posted online. However, the articles may still need technical editing, formatting, and/or the authors still need to review the proofs. 
    • Include whatever language the publisher uses to describe the article, and include an access date. 

1. Lardy, S. W.; Schmidt, V. A. Intermolecular Radical Mediated Anti-Markovnikov Alkene Hydroamination Using N-Hydroxyphthalimide. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140 (39), 12318-12322. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b06881

2. Kakkis, A.; Gagnon, D.; Esselborn, J.; Britt, R. D.; Tezcan. F. A. Metal‐Templated Design of Chemically Switchable Protein Assemblies with High‐Affinity Coordination Sites. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2020, 59 (49), 21940-21944. DOI: 10.1002/anie.202009226

3. Bullard, E. M.; Torres, I.; Ren, T.; Graeve, O. A.; Roy, K. Shell Mineralogy of a Foundational Marine Species, Mytilus californianus, over Half a Century in a Changing Ocean. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2021, 118 (3), e2004769118. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2004769118

4. Figueroa, J. S.; Abram, U.; Oxidorhenium(V) and Rhenium(III) Complexes with m‐Terphenyl Isocyanides. Z. Anorg. Allg. Chem. 2020, 646 (13), 909-914. DOI: 10.1002/zaac.202000147

5. Li, Y.; Maldonado-Lopez, D.; Vargas, V. R.; Zhang, J.; Yang, K.; Stability Diagrams, Defect Tolerance, and Absorption Coefficients of Hybrid Halide Semiconductors: High-Throughput First-Principles Characterization. J. Chem. Phys. 2020, 152, 084106. DOI: 10.1063/1.5127929

6. Luo, Y.; Parikh, P.; Brenner, T. M.; Kim, M.-C..; Wang, R.; Yang, Y.; Correa-Baena, J.-P.; Buonassisi, T.; Meng, Y. S.; Fenning, D. P. Quantitative Specifications to Avoid Degradation during E-Beam and Induced Current Microscopy of Halide Perovskite Devices. J. Phys. Chem. C. 2020, 124 (35), 18961-18967. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.0c06733

7. Perrin, C. L.; Lau, J. S.; Ohta, B. K. Low-Barrier Hydrogen Bonds in Pyridine-Dichloroacetic Acid Complexes. Pol. J. Chem. 2003, 77 (11),  1693-1702.

1. Scheetz, P. M.; Chachula, S. T.; Hughes, R. P.; Glueck, D. S.; Moore, C. E.; Gembicky, M.; Rheingold, A. L. Synthesis, Structure, Dynamics, and Enantioface-Selective η3-Benzyl Coordination in the Chiral Rhodium Complexes Rh(diphos*)(η3-CH2Ph). Organometallics 2020, 39 (21), 3801-3816. DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.0c00516

2. Kaufmann, K.; Zhu, C.; Rosengarten, A. S.; Maryanovsky, D.; Harrington, T. J.; Marin, E.; Vecchio, K. S. Crystal Symmetry Determination in Electron Diffraction Using Machine Learning. Science 2020, 367 (6477), 564-568. DOI: 10.1126/science.aay3062

1. Ferguson, F. M.; Nabet, B.; Raghavan, S.; Liu, Y.; Leggett, A. L.; Kuljanin, M.; Kalekar, R. L.; Yang, A.; He, S.; Wang, J.; et al. Discovery of a Selective Inhibitor of Doublecortin Like Kinase 1. Nat. Chem. Bio. 2020, 16, 635–643. DOI: 10.1038/s41589-020-0506-0

1. Urey, H. C.; Über den Störenden Einfluß eines Elektrischen Feldes auf den Zeemaneffekt von Spektrallinien. Z. Phys. 1924, 29, 86-90. DOI: 10.1007/BF03184829

 

If you use a translated article, cite that article, but you can include the original citation if you have it.

2. Vasil'ev, V. V.; Dmitriev, V. E.; Mets, V.; Komarov, V. Ya.; Gavrilov, V. V.; Ionin, B. I.  Oxygen-17 NMR Spectra of Esters of Phosphorus Acids. J. Gen. Chem. USSR. 1989, 59 (4), 724-734; Zh. Obshch. Khim. 1989, 59 (4), 821-833.

If you obtained the article from a 3rd party aggregator, rather than the publisher's website, you should include that information as well.

1. Wang, M.-J. The Role of Filler Networking in Dynamic Properties of Filled Rubber. Rubber Chem. Technol. 1999, 72 (2), 430-448. Retrieved from ProQuest: Materials Science & Engineering, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/roll-filler-networking-dynamic-properties-filled/docview/220680611/se-2 (accessed 2021-05-15). 

2. Curie, M. P.; Curie, Mme. P.; Bémont. Sur une Nouvelle Substance Fortement Radio-active, Contenue dans la Pechblende. C. R. Hebd. Seances Acad. Sci. 1898, 127, 1215-1217. Retrieved from Hathitrust, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.c051424858 (accessed 2021-05-15),

3. Molina, M. J.; Tso, T.-L.; Molina, L. T.; Wang, F. C.-Y. Antarctic Stratospheric Chemistry of Chlorine Nitrate, Hydrogen Chloride, and Ice: Release of Active Chlorine. Science 1987, 238 (4831), 1253-1257. Retrieved from JSTOR, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.c051424858 (accessed 2021-05-15).

Note: While UCSD's access to pre-1997 Science content is through JSTOR, since these are scans of the original articles and those articles have DOIs at the Science website (in this case: 10.1126/science.238.4831.1253), researchers here will cite the articles on Science rather than JSTOR.

Articles that have been peer reviewed and accepted may be published before they are assigned to a volume/issue are usually noted by something like "accepted article," "asap/as soon as publishable," or "in press." Depending on the publisher and status, the article may not yet be the final published version and may still need additional work like typesetting, copyediting. The articles can still be cited with the standard elements (authors, title, journal, year, DOI) along with the publication status.

1. Karges, J.; Cohen, S. M. Metal Complexes as Antiviral Agents for SARS-CoV-2. ChemBioChem 2021, Accepted Article. DOI: 10.1002/cbic.202100186

2. Satyam, K.; Brea, R. J.; Burkart, M. D.; Devaraj, N. K. Chemoenzymatic Generation of Phospholipid Membranes Mediated by Type I Fatty Acid Synthase. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, ASAP Article. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.1c02121

3. Schara, S.; Blau, R.; Church, D. C.; Pokorski, J. K.; Lipomi, D. J. Polymer Chemistry for Haptics, Soft Robotics, and Human–Machine Interfaces. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2021, Early View. DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202008375

4. Asamoto, D. K.; Kozachenko, I. A.; López-Peña, I.; Kim, J. E. Bimolecular Quenching of Tryptophan Fluorescence in a Membrane Protein: Evolution of Local Solvation and Environment during Folding into a Bilayer. Spectrochim. Acta, Part A 2021, In Press, Journal Pre-Proof. DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2021.119919

5. Adak, S.; Moore, B. S. Cryptic Halogenation Reactions in Natural Product Biosynthesis. Nat. Prod. Rep. 2021, Advance Article. DOI: 10.1039/D1NP00010A

If you're citing from a video journal like JoVE, cite it as you would a journal article, rather than streaming media like a YouTube video.

1. Kim, B.; Sailor, M. J.; Synthesis, Functionalization, and Characterization of Fusogenic Porous Silicon Nanoparticles for Oligonucleotide Delivery. J. Visualized Exp. 2019, 146, e59440. DOI: 10.3791/59440