The American Chemical Society's most recent style guide is the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication. The UNT library does not have a subscription to the entire guide, but you can use the free ACS Quick Style Guide to learn how to format references in a bibliography. You will be using the numeric superscript style to do citations in your project (the other ACS styles are numeric parenthetical and author-date).

You will need to confirm what ACS's official abbreviation of journal titles are for RefWorks and other reference managers because they can't always correct the information they get from databases. CASSI is the tool where you can search for a title and find out its official abbreviation. If a journal title is not in CASSI, then use its full title. When using RefWorks, either correct journal abbreviations using the editing panel for a source before writing, or wait until you're done writing a paper to correct the abbreviations in the bibliography.

See the handout below for examples of both in-text citations and references done in ACS numeric superscript style, tips on paraphrasing, and information on plagiarism.

RefWorks is a web-based research manager that allows you to create your own personal database of citations and documents for both academic and personal use. With RefWorks you can:

• Easily export references from electronic databases, the UNT library catalog, text files, websites and more into your account
• Quickly create reference lists for papers and projects in the citation style of your choice
• Store, read and annotate files.

See the Introduction to RefWorks Handout below and the RefWorks video tutorials on the RefWorks library guide to get started with your account.

When using ACS numeric superscript style, you will get the most out of RefWorks by using it in conjunction with one of its three word processor plugins: Google Docs plugin (easiest to install), RefWorks Citation Manager (for Word 2016), and Write-N-Cite (for earlier versions of Word).  See the software requirements and installation directions to get started with a writing plugin. If you use RefWorks alone, you can make a bibliography in the correct style, but you'll have to do some cutting and pasting to get the bibliography entries in the correct numerical order.

See the Google Docs instructions with screenshots below for how to create in-text numeric superscripts and a matching bibliography. 

Need help? Then use the library's Ask Us service. Get help from real people face-to-face, by phone, or by email.