American Chemical Society (ACS) Style Guide

Format the Reference List

How you organize your list will depend on which of the three systems (previous page) you chose. No matter which you use though, the entries must include the full details on your sources, including:

• author or editor
• publication date
• publication information.

Continue reading below for details on formatting each reference component and ordering the reference list.

General Guidelines:

• start a new page for the references list
• center or left-justify the word "References" on the page
• use a hanging indent (hanging indents indent all text except the first line), to correctly format your references list.

(A hanging indent, also known as a second line indent, sets off the first line of a paragraph by positioning it at the margin, and then indenting each subsequent line of the paragraph.

Order of References List

The order of your references list depends on what kind of in-text citations you used: author-date, or numerical (parenthetical or superscript).

• If you used numerical (parenthetical or superscript) in-text citations, put your references in numerical order.
• If you used author-date in-text citations, order references in alphabetical order by last name of the first author. Rule of thumb for names with similar roots: "nothing precedes something."

  Brown, L.
  Brownfield, G.
  Browning, R.