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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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

Graf, H.-F. Atmospheric Science. The Complex Interaction of Aerosols and Clouds. Science 2004, 303 (5662), 1309–1311.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ekström, G.; Stark, C. P. Simple Scaling of Catastrophic Landslide Dynamics. Science 2013, 339 (6126), 1416–1419.

A journal article with 3 authors

Huang, X.; Xu, Y.; Karato, S.-I. Water Content in the Transition Zone from Electrical Conductivity of Wadsleyite and Ringwoodite. Nature 2005, 434 (7034), 746–749.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Mobashir, M.; Madhusudhan, T.; Isermann, B.; Beyer, T.; Schraven, B. Negative Interactions and Feedback Regulations Are Required for Transient Cellular Response. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 3718.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Morsali, A.; Hashemi, L. Main Group Metal Coordination Polymers; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2017.

An edited book

Nuclear Non-Proliferation in International Law - Volume I; Black-Branch, J. L., Fleck, D., Eds.; T.M.C. Asser Press: The Hague, 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Chesneaux, J.-M.; Jézéquel, F.; Lamotte, J.-L. Stochastic Arithmetic and Verification of Mathematical Models. In Uncertainties in Environmental Modelling and Consequences for Policy Making; Baveye, P. C., Laba, M., Mysiak, J., Eds.; NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security; Springer Netherlands: Dordrecht, 2009; pp 101–125.

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.

Andrew, E. Facebook Announces Its Internet-Broadcasting Drone. 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

Government Accountability Office. Medicare: New Claims Processing System Benefits and Acquisition Risks; HEHS/AIMD-94-79; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1994.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Howard, R. Aging Well Adult Day Care Center. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2015.

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

Shear, M. D.; Baker, P. Saudis Welcome Trump’s Rebuff Of Obama’s Views. New York Times. May 20, 2017, p A1.

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 titleJournal of the American Chemical Society
AbbreviationJ. Am. Chem. Soc.
ISSN (print)0002-7863
ISSN (online)1520-5126
ScopeBiochemistry
Catalysis
Colloid and Surface Chemistry
General Chemistry

Other styles