How to format your references using the Journal of the American Chemical Society citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of the American Chemical Society. 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	Download the output style file
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)

Mascola, J. R. HIV. The Modern Era of HIV-1 Vaccine Development. Science 2015, 349 (6244), 139–140.

A journal article with 2 authors

(1)

Pedraza, J. M.; Paulsson, J. Effects of Molecular Memory and Bursting on Fluctuations in Gene Expression. Science 2008, 319 (5861), 339–343.

A journal article with 3 authors

(1)

Zhu, G.-Z.; Radtke, G.; Botton, G. A. Bonding and Structure of a Reconstructed (001) Surface of SrTiO3 from TEM. Nature 2012, 490 (7420), 384–387.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

(1)

Hughes, T. P.; Anderson, K. D.; Connolly, S. R.; Heron, S. F.; Kerry, J. T.; Lough, J. M.; Baird, A. H.; Baum, J. K.; Berumen, M. L.; Bridge, T. C.; Claar, D. C.; Eakin, C. M.; Gilmour, J. P.; Graham, N. A. J.; Harrison, H.; Hobbs, J.-P. A.; Hoey, A. S.; Hoogenboom, M.; Lowe, R. J.; McCulloch, M. T.; Pandolfi, J. M.; Pratchett, M.; Schoepf, V.; Torda, G.; Wilson, S. K. Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Mass Bleaching of Corals in the Anthropocene. Science 2018, 359 (6371), 80–83.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

(1)

Edelstein, L. N.; Waehler, C. A. What Do I Say?; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2011.

An edited book

(1)

Motivating Cooperation and Compliance with Authority: The Role of Institutional Trust; Bornstein, B. H., Tomkins, A. J., Eds.; Nebraska Symposium on Motivation; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2015; Vol. 62.

A chapter in an edited book

(1)

Carroll, J. E. The Environment Is a Moral and Spiritual Issue. In Spirituality and Sustainability: New Horizons and Exemplary Approaches; Dhiman, S., Marques, J., Eds.; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; pp 49–71.

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 Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Blog post

(1)

Andrew, E. The Delta Aquarid Meteor Shower Peaks TONIGHT - Here’s How To Watch. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/watch-delta-aquarids-meteor-shower-here/ (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. Cost Comparison of House of Representatives Page System Versus Regular Messenger Employees; GGD-83-108; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1983.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

(1)

Estrada Marroquin, E. M. Using Support Groups to Help Kinship Caregivers Transition Youth to Safe and Productive Community Living: A Grant Proposal. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2013.

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)

Rosenberg, E.; Surico, J. Beam Falls From a Crane, Killing 2 Workers in Queens. New York Times. November 22, 2016, p A23.

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	Journal of the American Chemical Society
Abbreviation	J. Am. Chem. Soc.
ISSN (print)	0002-7863
ISSN (online)	1520-5126
Scope	Biochemistry Catalysis Colloid and Surface Chemistry General Chemistry