How to format your references using the ACS Photonics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for ACS Photonics. 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)

Fuyuno, I. Plastic Promises. Nature 2007, 446 (7137), 715.

A journal article with 2 authors

(1)

Ahn, N. G.; Resing, K. A. Cell Biology. Lessons in Rational Drug Design for Protein Kinases. Science 2005, 308 (5726), 1266–1267.

A journal article with 3 authors

(1)

Patkowski, K.; Spirko, V.; Szalewicz, K. On the Elusive Twelfth Vibrational State of Beryllium Dimer. Science 2009, 326 (5958), 1382–1384.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

(1)

Drissner, D.; Kunze, G.; Callewaert, N.; Gehrig, P.; Tamasloukht, M.; Boller, T.; Felix, G.; Amrhein, N.; Bucher, M. Lyso-Phosphatidylcholine Is a Signal in the Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Symbiosis. Science 2007, 318 (5848), 265–268.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

(1)

Pike, A. Origination; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2015.

An edited book

(1)

Ultra-Wideband Short-Pulse Electromagnetics 8; Baum, C. E., Stone, A. P., Tyo, J. S., Eds.; Springer: New York, NY, 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

(1)

Dufour, F.; Prieto-Rumeau, T. Approximation of Infinite Horizon Discounted Cost Markov Decision Processes. In Optimization, Control, and Applications of Stochastic Systems: In Honor of Onésimo Hernández-Lerma; Hernández-Hernández, D., Minjárez-Sosa, J. A., Eds.; Birkhäuser: Boston, MA, 2012; pp 59–76.

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 ACS Photonics.

Blog post

(1)

Andrew, E. Teenage Quasar Tries to Hide in its Galactic Room. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/teenage-quasar-tries-hide-its-galactic-room/ (accessed 2018-10-30).

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. Transportation Services: Better Dissemination and Oversight of DOT’s Guidance Could Lead to Improved Access for Limited English-Proficient Populations (Vietnamese Version); GAO-06-187; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2005.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

(1)

Muehlhauser, C. Perceived Criticism, Self-Criticism, and Disordered Eating Patterns in College Students. Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL, 2017.

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)

Murphy, M. J. O. Weekend Entertainments From the Archives of The New York Times. New York Times. April 3, 2015, p C30.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference ¹.
This sentence cites two references ^1,2.
This sentence cites four references ^1–4.

About the journal

Full journal title	ACS Photonics
Abbreviation	ACS Photonics
ISSN (online)	2330-4022
Scope