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SPPS 221: Pharmaceutical Chemistry: ACS Citation Style

Information resources for pharmaceutical chemistry

Using ACS Citation Style

The ACS citation style information and examples are based on the 2020 ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication, which includes updated citation formatting. You can access the Quick Style Guide, which is freely available, or the full chapter for more in-depth examples, which requires VPN or the campus protected wifi.to access.

References in the ACS articles are also formatted by their technical editors.

  1. The formatting between the HTML and PDF versions is different
  2. Some aspects of that formatting may be difficult for you to replicate on your own.

In-Text Citations

ACS uses numbered references within the paper, either parenthetical (1,2,3) or superscripts.1,2,3 They use the parenthetical numbering in the HTML versions of the articles, and superscripts for the PDFs.

References are added to the bibliography in numerical order rather than alphabetical by author. If a source is cited more than once in the paper, simply reuse the reference number used the first time. It does not need to be added to the reference list more than once.

ACS Citation Examples

  • Include up to 10 authors, followed by et al if there are more. 
  • The journal names are italicized and abbreviated. If you're not sure what the abbreviation would be, search the title in CASSI. One-word journals are not abbreviated.
  • The year is in bold, and the volume number is italicized. Include the DOI at the end of the reference. Some articles may have a number rather than pages.
  • If the article has been accepted but has not yet been assigned to an issue, you might see phrases in the citation like online early access, just accepted, in press corrected proof, as soon as published. Include this in the citation as well. There's typically no page numbers since the article hasn't been added to an issue. You can add the date you accessed this if you choose.

If the article is noted as in press, or ASAP (as soon as publishable), or something similar, this means the article as been published quite recently and has not yet been assigned to an issue, so volumes and page numbers may be missing. Include this information in the citation, as done here in the first example

If you're not sure about the journal title abbreviations, you can consult the CASSI Search Tool. If the journal isn't listed, write out the full name..

1. Grimm, L. M.; Setiadi, J.; Tkachenko, B.; Schreiner, P. R.; Gilson, M. K.; Biedermann, F.; The Temperature-dependence of Host–guest Binding Thermodynamics: Experimental and Simulation Studies. Chem. Sci. 2023, Advance Article. DOI: 10.1039/D3SC01975F

2.  Mitachi, K.; Aleiwi, B. A.; Schneider, C. M.; Siricilla, S.; Kurosu, M. Stereocontrolled Total Synthesis of Muraymycin D1 Having a Dual Mode of Action against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138 (39), 12975-12980. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6b07395

3. Johnson, T.C.; Christy, M. P.; Siegel, D. Synthesis of the 26-Membered Core of Thiopeptide Natural Products by Scalable Thiazole-Forming Reactions of Cysteine Derivatives and Nitriles. Synthesis 2021, 53 (3), 498-508. DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1706478

4. Dean, D. A.; Gautham, G.; Siqueira-Neto, J. L.; McKerrow, J. H.; Dorrestein, P. C.; McCall, L.-I. Spatial Metabolomics Identifies Localized Chemical Changes in Heart Tissue during Chronic Cardiac Chagas Disease. PLoS Neglected Trop. Dis. 2021, 15 (10): e0009819. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0009819

Patents are fairly straightforward to cite. You do not need to include a URL or DOI, as the patent or application number is sufficient.

1. Doran, P. J.; O'Neill, P. M. Process for preparing tricyclic compounds having antihistaminic activity. US6271378 B1, 2001.

Ideally, you want the website, the page you used, the organization, the URL, and the data accessed. For databases that are paywalled like many of those licensed by UCSD. you may prefer to use the landing page for the website rather than the specific URL. If it's noted that the original source of the data is a journal article, you should cite the article if you actually obtain and use the article. Otherwise, cite the database. If the data was calculated or obtained from another company, that should be included in the citation as well. 

Some providers also offer guidance on how to cite their content. The PubChem example is adapted from their example of an MLA citation. 

1. Caffeine. Properties of Organic Compounds. Taylor & Francis. https://poc.chemnetbase.com/chemical/ChemicalSearchResults.xhtml?dswid=2558 (accessed 2023-10-24)

2. Caffeine. SciFinder-n. CAS. https://scifinder-n.cas.org (accessed 2023-10-24). Calculated using Advanced Chemistry Development software, version 11.02; ACD/Labs 1994-2022.

3. PubChem Compound Summary for CID 2519, Caffeine. PubChem. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/2519 (accessed 2023-10-24). 

Preprints are article manuscripts that authors have submitted for publication and are not yet peer reviewed. These are not the "versions of record" and may undergo more than revision as a preprint.

If the preprint has subsequently been accepted for publication, there's usually a link from the preprint to the publisher's website.

1. Tao, A. J.; Jiang, J.; Gadbois, G. E.; Goyal, P.; Boyle, B. T.; Mumby, E. J.; Myers, S. A.; English, J. G.; Ferguson, F. M. A Biotin Targeting Chimera (BioTAC) System to Map Small Molecule Interactomes in situ. bioRxiv. August 22, 2023, ver. 1. DOI: 10.1101/2023.08.21.554211 (accessed 2023-10-24).