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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS). 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]

Bence P. Olveczky. 2014. Neuroscience: Ordered randomness in fly love songs. Nature 507, 7491 (March 2014), 177–178.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Tracy L. Kress and Christine Guthrie. 2006. Molecular biology. Accurate RNA siting and splicing gets help from a DEK-hand. Science 312, 5782 (June 2006), 1886–1887.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Yoshiaki Orihara, Masashi Kamogawa, and Toshiyasu Nagao. 2014. Preseismic changes of the level and temperature of confined groundwater related to the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. Sci. Rep. 4, (November 2014), 6907.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Felix Roosen-Runge, Fajun Zhang, Frank Schreiber, and Roland Roth. 2014. Ion-activated attractive patches as a mechanism for controlled protein interactions. Sci. Rep. 4, (November 2014), 7016.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Jim McBee. 2009. Mastering Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 SP1. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, IN, USA.

An edited book

[1]

Rosemary Clark, D. W. Livingstone, and Harry Smaller (Eds.). 2012. Teacher Learning and Power in the Knowledge Society. SensePublishers, Rotterdam.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Fabio H. B. Lima and Daniel A. Cantane. 2013. Recent Advances on Nanostructured Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Electro-Reduction and Ethanol Electro-Oxidation. In Nanoenergy: Nanotechnology Applied for Energy Production, Flavio Leandro de Souza and Edson Roberto Leite (eds.). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 125–151.

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 Embedded Computing Systems.

Blog post

[1]

Elise Andrew. 2014. Polar Bears Face Starvation And Cub Loss Due To Sea Ice Loss. 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. 1990. U.S.-Korea Fighter Coproduction Program. 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]

Kacee N. Aldridge. 2015. The Impact of Improved Teachers’ Classroom Management and Cultural Responsiveness on Student Behavior. Doctoral dissertation. Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL.

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]

Sophia Kishkovsky (nyt). 2002. World Briefing | Europe: Ukraine: Panel To Study Reforms. New York Times, A6.

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 [3,4,6,8].

About the journal

Full journal title	ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems
Abbreviation	ACM Trans. Embed. Comput. Syst.
ISSN (print)	1539-9087
ISSN (online)	1558-3465
Scope	Hardware and Architecture Software