How to format your references using the ACM Transactions on Computer Systems citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for ACM Transactions on Computer Systems (TOCS). For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

[1]

Noam Soker. 2007. Astronomy. Nebulae around evolved stars. Science 315, 5815 (February 2007), 1086–1087.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Jeffrey Parsons and Yair Wand. 2008. A question of class. Nature 455, 7216 (October 2008), 1040–1041.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

D. R. Begun, B. G. Richmond, and D. S. Strait. 2007. Comment on “Origin of human bipedalism as an adaptation for locomotion on flexible branches.” Science 318, 5853 (November 2007), 1066; author reply 1066.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Nengwen Wang, Xiaodong Chen, Yuhua Yang, Jianwen Dong, Chengxin Wang, and Guowei Yang. 2013. Diffuse reflection inside a hexagonal nanocavity. Sci. Rep. 3, (2013), 1298.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

[1]

Dieter Meschede. 2017. Optics, Light, and Lasers. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.

An edited book

[1]

Frits Tjadens. 2013. Mobility of Health Professionals: Health Systems, Work Conditions, Patterns of Health Workers’ Mobility and Implications for Policy Makers. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Vincenzo Capasso and Daniela Morale. 2013. A Multiscale Approach Leading to Hybrid Mathematical Models for Angiogenesis: The Role of Randomness. In Mathematical Methods and Models in Biomedicine, Urszula Ledzewicz, Heinz Schättler, Avner Friedman and Eugene Kashdan (eds.). Springer, New York, NY, 87–115.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for ACM Transactions on Computer Systems.

Blog post

[1]

Janet Fang. 2015. How “SuperAger” Brains Are Different Than Everyone Else’s. IFLScience.

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

[1]

Government Accountability Office. 2000. Telecommunications: Update on State-Level Cramming Complaints and Enforcement Actions. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Victoria A. Hoch. 2014. The Effects of Systematic Reinforcement on Academic Performance in Precision Teaching: An Investigation of Acquisition, Retention, and Endurance. Doctoral dissertation. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

[1]

Linda Lee. 2013. Bring On The Wind And Water. New York Times, D2.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [2].
This sentence cites two references [3, 4].
This sentence cites four references [4–6, 8].

About the journal

Full journal title	ACM Transactions on Computer Systems
Abbreviation	ACM Trans. Comput. Syst.
ISSN (print)	0734-2071
ISSN (online)	1557-7333
Scope