How to format your references using the ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software (TOMS). 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]

Paul Smaglik. 2002. The physics imbalance. Nature 419, 6903 (September 2002), 3.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

A. Rizki and V. Lundblad. 2001. Defects in mismatch repair promote telomerase-independent proliferation. Nature 411, 6838 (June 2001), 713–716.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

M. J. Bennett, J. A. Lebrón, and P. J. Bjorkman. 2000. Crystal structure of the hereditary haemochromatosis protein HFE complexed with transferrin receptor. Nature 403, 6765 (January 2000), 46–53.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Bernard L. Nahlen, Eline L. Korenromp, John M. Miller, and Kenji Shibuya. 2005. Malaria risk: estimating clinical episodes of malaria. Nature 437, 7056 (September 2005), E3; discussion E4-5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Rainer Mallée, Werner Fuchs, and Rolf Eligehausen. 2013. Design of Fastenings for Use in Concrete - the CEN/TS 1992-4 Provisions. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.

An edited book

[1]

Richard Moot. 2012. The Logic of Categorial Grammars: A Deductive Account of Natural Language Syntax and Semantics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Christian Jacob, Scott Steil, and Karel Bergmann. 2006. The Swarming Body: Simulating the Decentralized Defenses of Immunity. In Artificial Immune Systems: 5th International Conference, ICARIS 2006, Oeiras, Portugal, September 4-6, 2006. Proceedings, Hugues Bersini and Jorge Carneiro (eds.). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 52–65.

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 Mathematical Software.

Blog post

[1]

Jonathan O`Callaghan. 2017. Lifelong Protection From Severe Allergies Could Be Possible With New Treatment. 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. 1999. Passenger Facility Charges: Program Implementation and the Potential Effects of Proposed Changes. 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]

Erol Uzan. 2017. Secondary Mathematics Pre-Service Teachers’ Processes of Selection and Integration of Technology. Doctoral dissertation. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.

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]

George Gene Gustines. 2016. A Bird? A Plane? La Borinqueña! New York Times, MB4.

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 Mathematical Software
Abbreviation	ACM Trans. Math. Softw.
ISSN (print)	0098-3500
ISSN (online)	1557-7295
Scope