How to format your references using the ACS Synthetic Biology citation style

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

Rathi, A. Event: Turning the Tables. Nature 2010, 467 (7317), S22-3.

A journal article with 2 authors

(1)

Panian, J.; Wiltschko, D. Ramp Initiation in a Thrust Wedge. Nature 2004, 427 (6975), 624–627.

A journal article with 3 authors

(1)

Martinez-Perez, E.; Shaw, P.; Moore, G. The Ph1 Locus Is Needed to Ensure Specific Somatic and Meiotic Centromere Association. Nature 2001, 411 (6834), 204–207.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

(1)

Barna, M.; Pusic, A.; Zollo, O.; Costa, M.; Kondrashov, N.; Rego, E.; Rao, P. H.; Ruggero, D. Suppression of Myc Oncogenic Activity by Ribosomal Protein Haploinsufficiency. Nature 2008, 456 (7224), 971–975.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

(1)

Adams, F.; Aizawa, K. The Bounds of Cognition; Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford, UK, 2010.

An edited book

(1)

Casimir Physics; Dalvit, D., Milonni, P., Roberts, D., da Rosa, F., Eds.; Lecture Notes in Physics; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011; Vol. 834.

A chapter in an edited book

(1)

Møller, J. Norway: Researching Norwegian Principals. In A Decade of Research on School Principals: Cases from 24 Countries; Ärlestig, H., Day, C., Johansson, O., Eds.; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; pp 77–101.

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 Synthetic Biology.

Blog post

(1)

Fang, J. World’s Oldest Known Fossils Are Just Oddly Shaped Minerals. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/new-study-closes-debate-world-s-oldest-fossils/ (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. NASA Procurement: Use of Award Fees for Achieving Program Outcomes Should Be Improved; GAO-07-58; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2007.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

(1)

Watson, C. A. A Cultural Confluence: Approaches to Embedding Cultural Insights and Inclusion throughout the Marketing Process. Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, 2014.

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)

Williams, J. Boom Time in Nollywood. New York Times. October 13, 2017, p BR4.

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 Synthetic Biology
Abbreviation	ACS Synth. Biol.
ISSN (online)	2161-5063
Scope