ACS (American Chemical Society) style

Text formatting

There is no single 'correct' text-formatting convention - styles and preference can vary across similar types of publication and change over time. Examples given throughout these pages use a consistent formatting style based on The ACS Style Guide, a manual for authors and editors.

If publishing outside faculty (eg, a paper for a technical journal) the style may need to be varied in line with the preferred style of publication.
Two common conventions are for periodicals and books:

Periodicals - recommended format

Author(s)
The surname of all authors is given, each followed by initials. Names are separated by a semi-colon:

Grote, T.; Gandara, D.; Kristiansen, M. Kinetics of gasification of brown coal. J. Nat. Prod. 1999, 39(12), 32-37.

Journal article title
Not essential, but considered desirable. Followed by a full stop:

Grote, T.; Gandara, D.; Kristiansen, M. Kinetics of gasification of brown coal. J. Nat. Prod. 1999, 39(12), 32-37.

Journal title
Normally abbreviated (not one-word titles) - in italics, no punctuation follows.

Grote, T.; Gandara, D.; Kristiansen, M. Kinetics of gasification of brown coal. J. Nat. Prod. 1999, 39(12), 32-37.

Year of publication
In bold type - followed by a comma.

Grote, T.; Gandara, D.; Kristiansen, M. Kinetics of gasification of brown coal. J. Nat. Prod. 1999, 39(12), 32-37.

Volume/Issue (include issue number where each issue begins with page 1)
Volume: italic type - no space follows - Issue: in parentheses, followed by a comma.

Grote, T.; Gandara, D.; Kristiansen, M. Kinetics of gasification of brown coal. J. Nat. Prod. 1999, 39(12), 32-37.

Page numbers
Show the page range, (separate the page numbers with a dash) - followed by a full stop.

Grote, T.; Gandara, D.; Kristiansen, M. Kinetics of gasification of brown coal. J. Nat. Prod. 1999, 39(12), 32-37.

Books - recommended format

Author(s)
As per periodicals author:

Cieplak, P.; Kollman, P. A.; Radomski, J. P. Molecular Design of Fluorine-Containing Peptide Mimetics. In Biomedical Frontiers of Fluorine Chemistry; Ojima, I., McCarthy, J. R., Welch, J. T., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series 639; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1996; pp 143-156.

Chapter title
As per journal article:

Cieplak, P.; Kollman, P. A.; Radomski, J. P. Molecular Design of Fluorine-Containing Peptide Mimetics. In Biomedical Frontiers of Fluorine Chemistry; Ojima, I., McCarthy, J. R., Welch, J. T., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series 639; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1996; pp 143-156.

Book title and edition
Full title in italics (preceded by 'In'), followed by a semicolon:

Cieplak, P.; Kollman, P. A.; Radomski, J. P. Molecular Design of Fluorine-Containing Peptide Mimetics. In Biomedical Frontiers of Fluorine Chemistry; Ojima, I., McCarthy, J. R., Welch, J. T., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series 639; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1996; pp 143-156.

Editor(s)
The surname of all editors is given, each followed by initials and a comma.
Editor names are followed by 'Eds.' and a semicolon:

Cieplak, P.; Kollman, P. A.; Radomski, J. P. Molecular Design of Fluorine-Containing Peptide Mimetics. In Biomedical Frontiers of Fluorine Chemistry; Ojima, I., McCarthy, J. R., Welch, J. T., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series 639; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1996; pp 143-156.

Series information (if any)
Followed by a semicolon:

Cieplak, P.; Kollman, P. A.; Radomski, J. P. Molecular Design of Fluorine-Containing Peptide Mimetics. In Biomedical Frontiers of Fluorine Chemistry; Ojima, I., McCarthy, J. R., Welch, J. T., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series 639; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1996; pp 143-156.

Publication information

1. Publisher, followed by a colon. Do not abbreviate publishers' names - well-known acronyms may be used however.
2. Place of publication, followed by a comma. If not considered a major city in the world, include state (two-letter postal abbreviation) for U.S. cities and country for other cities.
3. Year of publication, followed by a fullstop or a semicolon if further information is given.

Cieplak, P.; Kollman, P. A.; Radomski, J. P. Molecular Design of Fluorine-Containing Peptide Mimetics. In Biomedical Frontiers of Fluorine Chemistry; Ojima, I., McCarthy, J. R., Welch, J. T., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series 639; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1996; pp 143-156.

Page
Prefaced by 'p' for single and 'pp' for multiple pages, followed by a fullstop:

Cieplak, P.; Kollman, P. A.; Radomski, J. P. Molecular Design of Fluorine-Containing Peptide Mimetics. In Biomedical Frontiers of Fluorine Chemistry; Ojima, I., McCarthy, J. R., Welch, J. T., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series 639; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1996; pp 143-156.