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]

Woody Turner. 2014. Conservation. Sensing biodiversity. Science 346, 6207 (October 2014), 301–302.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Jacob S. Sherkow and Henry T. Greely. 2013. Genomics. What if extinction is not forever? Science 340, 6128 (April 2013), 32–33.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J. Trujillo Bueno, N. Shchukina, and A. Asensio Ramos. 2004. A substantial amount of hidden magnetic energy in the quiet Sun. Nature 430, 6997 (July 2004), 326–329.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Sara G. Ostrowski, Craig T. Van Bell, Nicholas Winograd, and Andrew G. Ewing. 2004. Mass spectrometric imaging of highly curved membranes during Tetrahymena mating. Science 305, 5680 (July 2004), 71–73.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Alice M. Sapienza. 2004. Managing Scientists. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

[1]

Dick Grune. 2008. Parsing Techniques: A Practical Guide. Springer, New York, NY.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

James R. Howe and Daniel Calva. 2010. Basic Sciences and Genetics: Hamartomatous Polyposis. In Hereditary Colorectal Cancer, Miguel A. Rodriguez-Bigas, Raul Cutait, Patrick M. Lynch, Ian Tomlinson and Hans F. A. Vasen (eds.). Springer US, Boston, MA, 87–109.

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]

Josh Davis. 2016. This Polymer Can Change Shape By Itself. IFLScience. Retrieved October 30, 2018 from https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/this-polymer-can-change-shape-by-itself/

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. 1977. Establishing a Proper Fee Schedule Under the Independent Offices Appropriation Act, 1952. 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]

Jacob M. Murdock. 2017. Lethe and the Twin Bodhisattvas of Forgiveness and Forgetfulness. Doctoral dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA.

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 Qiu. 2017. Pre-Existing Conditions: There’s Truth-Stretching From Both Sides. New York Times, A13.

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

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