Chemistry

The chemistry department uses The ACS Style Guide, which is produced by the American Chemical Society (ACS). The Journal of the American Chemistry Society (JACS) uses a specific referencing format detailed within the ACS guide.

Please find detailed referencing information in the referencing section of the ACS Style Guide. 

In-Text Citations

The ACS guide includes three in-text citation styles:

1. Superscript number outside punctuation.1
2. Italicized number in parentheses inside punctuation (1).
3. Name-year in parentheses inside punctuation (Sposito 2009).

The Journal of the American Chemistry Scociety (JACS) uses the first option.

References Page

General Guidelines

• Use the title "References"
• List references in numerical or alphabetical order as dictated by the chosen in-text citation style (numerical or author-date)
• Abbreviate journal titles as per the Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index (CASSI)

Formatting Guidelines

Authors

• General format: surname-comma-space-initials (followed by periods with no space between initials)
• Multiple author names are separated by semicolons
• For more than ten authors, list the first ten followed by a semi-colon and et al. (JACS style; others differ)

Titles

• Italicize titles of books and use regular capitalization rules
• Do not italicize titles of chapters, articles, theses, dissertations, or patents

Journals

• Abbreviate (see above) and italicize title
• Bold the journal year and the subsequent comma
• Italicize the journal volume number and subsequent comma
• Include the issue number in parentheses, if applicable (no italics)
• If accessed online, include the DOI number and URL and indicate that it was accessed online by adding [Online] after the journal title

See the ACS Style Quick Guide (2020) for Referencing for common types of sources. 

Updated November 2022

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