How to format your references using the Acta Crystallographica Section C: Structural Chemistry citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Crystallographica Section C: Structural Chemistry. 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

ter Meulen, V. (2014). Nature 509, 135.

A journal article with 2 authors

Duret, L. & Galtier, N. (2009). Science 323, 714; author reply 714.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bristow, C. S., Bailey, S. D. & Lancaster, N. (2000). Nature 406, 56–59.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Woo, J. S., Han, J. T., Jung, S., Jang, J. I., Kim, H. Y., Jeong, H. J., Jeong, S. Y., Baeg, K.-J. & Lee, G.-W. (2014). Sci. Rep. 4, 4804.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hayward, A. & Weare, F. (2010). Steel Detailers’ Manual Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

An edited book

Mathaudhu, S. N., Sillekens, W. H., Neelameggham, N. R. & Hort, N. (2016). Magnesium Technology 2012 Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Zhuang, Z. & Kwok, S. (2012). Vol. Internet and Distributed Computing Systems: 5th International Conference, IDCS 2012, Wuyishan, Fujian, China, November 21-23, 2012. Proceedings, edited by Y. Xiang, M. Pathan, X. Tao & H. Wang. pp. 57–70. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

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 Acta Crystallographica Section C: Structural Chemistry.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014). IFLScience, https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/thousands-darwins-hand-written-manuscripts-made-available-online/.

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

Government Accountability Office (1972). Need for Improved Coordination of Federally Assisted Student Aid Programs in Institutions of Higher Education Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Liao, W. (2010). The epitope specificity of the human anti-Candida albicans antibody M1g1. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach.

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

Leland, J. (2017). New York Times MB1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (ter Meulen, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (ter Meulen, 2014; Duret & Galtier, 2009).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Duret & Galtier, 2009)
Three or more authors: (Woo et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Acta Crystallographica Section C: Structural Chemistry
Abbreviation	Acta Crystallogr. C Struct. Chem.
ISSN (online)	2053-2296
Scope

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