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)

Strano, M. S. Chemistry. Functional DNA Origami Devices. Science 2012, 338 (6109), 890–891.

A journal article with 2 authors

(1)

Shizgal, P.; Arvanitogiannis, A. Neuroscience. Gambling on Dopamine. Science 2003, 299 (5614), 1856–1858.

A journal article with 3 authors

(1)

Norell, M. A.; Makovicky, P. J.; Currie, P. J. Palaeontology. The Beaks of Ostrich Dinosaurs. Nature 2001, 412 (6850), 873–874.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

(1)

Sun, B.; Griffin, B. M.; Ayala-del-Río, H. L.; Hashsham, S. A.; Tiedje, J. M. Microbial Dehalorespiration with 1,1,1-Trichloroethane. Science 2002, 298 (5595), 1023–1025.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

(1)

Wagner, D.; Balog, E. Advanced Technical Analysis of ETFs; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2012.

An edited book

(1)

Wüthrich, M. V. Financial Modeling, Actuarial Valuation and Solvency in Insurance; Merz, M., Ed.; Springer Finance; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

(1)

Luciano, E. Peano and His School Between Leibniz and Couturat: The Influence in Mathematics and in International Language. In New Essays on Leibniz Reception: In Science and Philosophy of Science 1800-2000; Krömer, R., Chin-Drian, Y., Eds.; Springer: Basel, 2012; pp 41–64.

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. Want More Innovation? Try Connecting The Dots Between Engineering And Humanities. 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. Aviation Safety: Better Oversight Would Reduce the Risk of Air Taxi Accidents; T-RCED-92-27; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1992.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

(1)

Pelser, C. R. Interpretation of Aaron Copland’s Duo for Flute and Piano. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2010.

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)

Moschen, I. An Amenity That’s Going Places. New York Times. January 6, 2013, p RE8.

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