ACS Citation Generator
This free ACS citation generator follows the ACS Guide to scholarly communication from the American Chemical Society, used by ACS journals and most chemistry and biochemistry courses. Paste a DOI, ISBN, web address or title, check the details, and copy a numbered reference for your paper, thesis or lab report.
Or fill in the fields below by hand. Check every citation against the source before you submit.
Reference in ACS (2026 revision)
Look up a source or type a title and an author to see the citation.
Formatting by citeproc-js (CPAL-1.0) with Citation Style Language styles (CC BY-SA 3.0). Book data from Open Library, article data from Crossref, DataCite and PubMed. citeproc-js source code
Writing up in LaTeX with achemso? Convert a Word or PDF draft into LaTeX and keep your references.
Convert a fileWhat Is an ACS Citation Generator?
The Chemistry Reference Style
ACS style is how chemists cite sources in journal articles, theses and lab reports. An ACS citation generator turns the details of a paper, book or web page into a reference in the order and punctuation the ACS Guide sets out.
Semicolons, Bold Years, Italic Volumes
An ACS reference separates authors with semicolons, writes initials after surnames, sets the journal abbreviation and volume in italics and the year in bold, as in LeCun, Y.; Bengio, Y. Nature 2015, 521, 436–444.
Numbered by First Citation
Most ACS journals number references in the order they are cited and mark them in the text with superscripts or italic numbers in parentheses. Our ACS citation generator numbers your list in the order you add sources.
Why Use Our ACS Citation Generator?
From the DOI in Seconds
Almost every chemistry article has a DOI. The ACS citation generator reads the record from Crossref, so authors, volume, issue and pages match the published version, and books come from their ISBN.
Edit Before You Copy
Fix a journal abbreviation, add a missing page range or change the source type, and the reference updates as you type.
Try the general citation generatorBibTeX for achemso
Writing in LaTeX? The achemso package formats a .bib file in ACS style. Get a BibTeX entry for any DOI in one click.
Open DOI to BibTeXHow to Use It in 3 Steps
Step 1: Paste the DOI
Paste a DOI, ISBN, URL, PMID or title into the ACS citation generator and press Cite, or choose a source type and fill in the fields.
Step 2: Abbreviate the Journal
ACS uses CAS Source Index (CASSI) abbreviations, such as J. Am. Chem. Soc. The Journal abbreviation field is filled from Crossref when available; check it before you copy.
Step 3: Number and Copy
Add sources in the order you cite them, copy the numbered list into your References section, and mark each citation in the text with its number.
Convert your report to LaTeXOfficial references: achemso (CTAN) · biblatex-chem (CTAN)
ACS Citation Generator FAQ
- How to do ACS citation?
- Mark each source in the text with a number in order of first citation, then list the full references by number at the end. Each reference gives authors, title, abbreviated journal, year, volume, pages and DOI. Paste each source into the ACS citation generator to get the entry.
- What is ACS citation?
- The referencing style of the American Chemical Society, described in the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication (formerly the ACS Style Guide). It is used in chemistry, biochemistry and chemical engineering journals, theses and lab reports.
- How to do in text citations ACS?
- ACS allows three forms: a superscript number after the punctuation, as in reported earlier.¹; an italic number in parentheses, (1); or author and year, (LeCun 2015). Use one form throughout, as your journal or instructor asks.
- Is ACS citation in alphabetical order?
- Usually not. With numbered citations, references are listed in the order they are first cited. Only when you use the author-date form is the reference list arranged alphabetically by first author.
- Is ACS citation the same as APA?
- No. APA is an author-date style with an alphabetical reference list and the year after the authors. ACS normally numbers references, separates authors with semicolons, abbreviates journal names and puts the year in bold after the journal.
- What does ACS citation look like?
- A journal article: (1) LeCun, Y.; Bengio, Y.; Hinton, G. Deep Learning. Nature 2015, 521 (7553), 436–444. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539. The journal and volume are italic and the year is bold.
- How to add ACS citation in Word?
- Word has no built-in ACS style. Copy references from the ACS citation generator and type the numbers yourself, or use the ACS style in Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote, which insert numbered citations. References exported from SciFinder can be imported into those tools.
- Can you use et al in ACS citations?
- In the reference list ACS normally names every author, separated by semicolons. In the text, a paper with three or more authors is written as LeCun et al. Some journals allow et al. for very long author lists, so check their instructions.
- Where do you put the DOI in a ACS citation?
- At the end of the reference, after the page range, written as a link: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539. The ACS citation generator adds it automatically whenever the record has one.
- How to cite SDS for ACS citations?
- Cite a safety data sheet as a document from its company: Company. Safety Data Sheet: Product Name; Catalog No.; Version, Date. URL (accessed Month Day, Year). Choose Report as the source type and put the company as the author in braces.
- How to format an interview citation in ACS?
- An interview or conversation is a personal communication: Name, Affiliation. Personal communication, Month Day, Year. Websites follow Author. Title. Website Name. URL (accessed date). Paste a link to cite a web page automatically.
- Can I create an ACS citation from a DOI?
- Yes. Paste the DOI or a doi.org link and press Cite. The ACS citation generator fills in every field from Crossref or DataCite and ends the reference with the DOI link.
- Does the ACS citation generator abbreviate journal names?
- Yes, when the record has one. Crossref supplies the CASSI-style short title, such as J. Am. Chem. Soc. for the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and the reference prints it. If the Journal abbreviation field is empty, type the abbreviation there.
- How do I make an ACS citation from a PDF?
- Cite the article the PDF contains. Its DOI is printed on the first page of almost every chemistry paper: paste it into the ACS citation generator. For a report or thesis PDF, choose that type and fill in the fields.
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