Published February 17, 2021. Updated July 14, 2021.

To cite in American Chemical Society (ACS) style, it is helpful to know basic information about your source. This includes the author name(s), the title of the source and/or article, date of publication, and page numbers (if applicable).

This guide provides in-text citations and full reference examples in ACS style for the following types of sources:

• Website

• Book

• Journal Article

• Newspaper or Magazine Article

• PDF

• YouTube Video

• Online Image

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Formatting in ACS style

ACS citation style has two parts:

1. In-text citation

2. Reference list

In-text citations

In-text citations provide information from a source within the text of your work. The citations are arranged sequentially in the text, by placing a number italicized inside parenthesis or in superscript form or using an author–date format.

You can also cite more than one source at a time:

• Example sentence (1,2) or Example sentence 1,2 or Example sentence (Rose, 2003)

• Example sentence (1–3) or Example sentence 1–3 or Example sentence (Rose, 2003; Goldstein and Fox, 2004; Watson et al. 2007)

• Example sentence (1,2–4, 9) or Example sentence 1,2–4,9 or Example sentence (Rose, 2003; Goldstein and Fox, 2004; Watson et al. 2007)

In this guide we shall only consider examples of citations inside parenthesis. The note number corresponds to the source’s number in the reference list.

Reference list

The reference list is placed at the end of your paper and given a title of “References.” References are listed in the order the sources are mentioned in your paper; they are not listed in alphabetical order. For references having more than six authors, use six authors’ names followed by “et al.”.

Example:

1. American Chemical Society. https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en.html (accessed Jan 24, 2021).

2. Field, A. Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistic , 4th ed.; Sage: Los Angeles, 2013.

3. Xu, L. An Inviscid Model for the Base Pressure of Transonic Turbine Cascade. Acta Mech. Sin. 1991, 7, 39–45.

4. Valentine, S. Why Virginia Is Helping Develop Innovative Alcohol Detection Technology. The Washington Post, Jan 24, 2021, p H4.

5. Schwab, K. The Global Competitiveness Report 2013–2014. 2013. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalCompetitivenessReport_2013-14.pdf (accessed Jan 24, 2021).

6. DoS – Domain of Science. The Map of Chemistry [Video File]. YouTube, May 16, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3RXtoYCW4M (accessed 24 January, 2021).

7. Renoir, A. Madame Georges Charpentier (Marguérite-Louise Lemonnier, 1848–1904) and Her Children, Georgette-Berthe (1872–1945) and Paul-Émile-Charles (1875–1895); The Met Museum. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438815 (accessed January 24, 2021).

Citing a website page in ACS style

In-text citation template & example:

Example sentence (#) …

The results demonstrate that teens are under depression (4) …

Reference list template and example:

Citing a book in ACS style

In-text citation template & example:

Example sentence (#) ….

Side effects started appearing about 2 weeks after the trial began (3) …

Reference list template and example:

Citing a journal article in ACS style

The title of journals should be abbreviated according to the Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index.

In-text citation template & example:

Example sentence (#) …

Despite repeated and comprehensive efforts by the researchers (7) …

Reference list template and example:

Citing a newspaper article in ACS style

In-text citation template & example:

Example sentence (#) …

Despite repeated and comprehensive efforts by the researchers (6) …

Reference list template and example:

Citing a PDF in ACS style

In-text citation template & example:

Example sentence (#) …

Despite repeated and comprehensive efforts by the researchers (7) …

Reference list template and example:

Citing a YouTube video in ACS style

In-text citation template & example:

Example sentence (#) …

There are several approaches to washing hands, including the one shown in this image (7).

Reference list template and example:

Citing an online image in ACS style

In-text citation template & example:

Example sentence (#) …

There are several approaches (12) to …

Reference list template and example:

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