Generate references in ACS style — the numbered format of the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication, used by the American Chemical Society journals — from a DOI, PubMed ID, PMCID, ISBN, arXiv ID, ISSN, ADS bibcode, or paper URL. Semicolon-separated author lists, CASSI journal abbreviations, and the full DOI link, resolved from the publisher’s own record.
ACS format · DOI, PMID, PMCID & ISBN input · Free, no signup
One identifier per line. We’ll resolve it and return an ACS-style reference. Nothing is stored.
0 / 2,000 characters
Resolving an identifier confirms the paper exists - it does not confirm the citations in your bibliography point to the right papers. The dominant AI-fabrication pattern is a real, resolvable DOI paired with an invented title. Audit your whole reference list for fabricated citations before you submit.
Each resolved identifier produces one numbered reference in ACS format. The journal name comes back as its registered CASSI abbreviation (J. Chem. Educ., not Journal of Chemical Education), authors are separated by semicolons, and the DOI closes the reference as a full URL.
Input
Output
(1) Elgrishi, N.; Rountree, K. J.; McCarthy, B. D.; Rountree, E. S.; Eisenhart, T. T.; Dempsey, J. L. A Practical Beginner’s Guide to Cyclic Voltammetry. J. Chem. Educ. 2017, 95 (2), 197–206. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00361.
Note the ACS conventions: the citation number in parentheses, surname-first authors joined by semicolons, the abbreviated journal title, and the year-volume-issue block. In print, the journal and volume are italicised and the year is bold; the plain-text output here strips that emphasis. Titles and dates come from the publisher’s registered record.
ACS style is the citation format of the American Chemical Society, defined in the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication (2020), the successor of The ACS Style Guide. It is the required style across the ACS journal family — JACS, J. Org. Chem., Anal. Chem., Chem. Rev. — and the default in chemistry and chemical-engineering programs.
ACS is a numbered style: references appear in the list in the order they are first cited, and in-text citations are superscript numbers or italic numbers on the line — the ACS Guide also permits author–date. Journal titles are abbreviated per CASSI, and DOIs are given as full https://doi.org/ links. This page renders with the reference ACS CSL style — the same definition Zotero and Mendeley use — rather than a builtin approximation. To see ACS next to IEEE, Vancouver, or any other style for the same paper, use the Citation Style Comparator.
Reading the example above left to right, an ACS journal reference is built from these parts:
| Part | Example | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Citation number | (1) | ACS numbers references in order of first citation |
| Authors | Elgrishi, N.; Rountree, K. J.; McCarthy, B. D.; …; Dempsey, J. L. | Surname, then initials with periods; authors separated by semicolons; all authors listed |
| Article title | A Practical Beginner’s Guide to Cyclic Voltammetry | As the publisher registered it, followed by a period |
| Journal | J. Chem. Educ. | CASSI abbreviation, italicised in print |
| Year, Volume (Issue) | 2017, 95 (2) | Year bold in print, volume italic, issue in parentheses |
| Pages | 197–206 | En-dash page range |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00361 | Full DOI URL, closing period |
Books work too: enter an ISBN and the reference comes back with the book title, publisher, and year.
.bib file with our DOI to BibTeX converter and pair it with the achemso package that ACS journal templates use.This page formats with the reference ACS CSL style. Send POST /api/format with style: "acs" (a shorthand for the full CSL id american-chemical-society, which also works) and one or more identifiers in text; batch input returns one numbered reference per line. The builtins vancouver, ama, ieee, apa, and cse work the same way, and 10,000+ further styles are available by CSL id. See the API documentation.
ACS style is the reference format of the American Chemical Society, defined in the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication (2020, the successor of The ACS Style Guide). It is the house style of the ACS journals — JACS, J. Org. Chem., Anal. Chem., and the rest of the family — and the default in chemistry departments and chemical-engineering programs. References are numbered in the order they are first cited.
Authors come first as surname plus initials separated by semicolons, then the article title, the CASSI journal abbreviation, then year, volume, the issue in parentheses, the page range, and the DOI as a full URL — for example J. Chem. Educ. 2017, 95 (2), 197–206. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00361.
Each author is written as surname, comma, then initials with periods — Dempsey, J. L. — and authors are separated by semicolons rather than commas. All authors on the record are listed. Names come from the publisher's registered record.
The ACS Guide allows three: superscript numbers, italic numbers on the line in parentheses, and author–date. The numbered forms are the most common in ACS journals, and this generator produces the matching numbered reference list, in order of first citation.
Yes. It uses the abbreviated journal title carried on the registry record, which follows CASSI (the Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index) for chemistry journals — Journal of Chemical Education becomes J. Chem. Educ. When a journal has no abbreviation on file, the full journal title is used instead.
Yes. Paste a PMID or PMCID and the tool resolves it via PubMed, then formats the record in ACS style — useful for biochemistry and medicinal-chemistry references. DOIs, ISBNs, arXiv IDs, ISSNs, and ADS bibcodes work the same way — enter one identifier per line to build a whole reference list at once.
Compare ACS output against other styles side by side with the Citation Style Comparator, or export the same references to a reference manager format.
This page is a front end for the public Scholar Sidekick API — the same ACS formatting runs over plain HTTP, so you can call it from a script, an AI agent, or your reference manager. Light use needs no key at all. A free account issues an ssk_ key that raises your rate limit.