This ACS citation generator formats references in American Chemical Society style, the standard for chemistry coursework and for journals such as JACS and Organic Letters. Paste a DOI or a paper title and the generator pulls the real record from CrossRef before formatting it. ACS is distinctive for its semicolon-separated author lists and heavily abbreviated journal names, both of which are easy to get wrong by hand.
Your formatted reference will appear here, with the database record it came from.
Real American Chemical Society (ACS) style references, formatted the way chemistry coursework expects them.
Journal article
Smith, J. A.; Jones, B. C. Selective Fluorination of Aryl Ethers. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2024, 146 (8), 5120–5128.
Book
Okafor, N. Principles of Organic Synthesis, 3rd ed.; Meridian: New York, 2022.
Chapter in an edited book
Alvarez, M. Catalysis at Interfaces. In Advances in Surface Chemistry; Berg, L., Ed.; Rowan Press: Boston, 2023; pp 88–115.
ACS allows three citation systems and your journal or instructor picks one: superscript numbers, italic numbers in parentheses, or author-date. Superscript numbering is the most common in student work. Whichever system you use, apply it consistently across the whole document.
as previously reported¹
Citing a website in ACS requires the author or organisation, the page title, the URL and an access date. ACS writes access dates in year-month-day order, which differs from most other styles and is a frequent source of lost marks.
National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST Chemistry WebBook. https://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/ (accessed 2026-08-19).
If your instructor has not specified, superscript numbers are the safest default for coursework. ACS journals state their preference in the author guidelines, and some omit article titles entirely.
Abbreviations come from the publisher record where one is supplied. ACS abbreviations follow the CASSI list, so check unusual or newly launched journals.
Supporting information is cited as part of the parent article. Standalone datasets are cited by DOI, which most chemistry repositories now issue.
The core reference format is shared, but individual ACS journals differ on whether article titles appear and how supporting information is referenced. The generator produces the standard form, which is accepted for coursework.