ACM Journals Word Style Guide
There are three types of ACM journal/transactions:
1. Small Standard Format -- (NEW STYLE FILE AS OF DECEMBER 11TH. 2012)
2. Large Format Single Column -- (NEW STYLE FILE AS OF DECEMBER 11TH. 2012)
3. Large Format Double Column -- (NEW STYLE FILE AS OF DECEMBER 11TH. 2012)
Identify the journal for which you are writing and download the appropriate files.
NOTE about ACCESSIBILITY
ACM would like to make all its published articles accessible to the visually impaired user. These Word
templates are a first step in that direction. To make your article accessible (especially those of you
submitting to TACCESS), use these template with MS-Word version 2007 or later. You will be able to
activate and utilize the special tags provided that support accessibility. Most accessibility features are
only supported by MS-Word version 2007 or later.
1. The Small Standard Format is used for the following journals and transactions:
CIE, CSUR, JACM, JDIQ, JEA, JETC, TAAS, TACCESS, TACO, TALG, TALIP, TECS,TIIS, TISSEC, TIST,
TKDD, TMIS, TOCE, TOCHI, TOCL, TOCS, TOCT, TODAES, TODS, TOIS, TOIT, TOMACS, TOMS, TOPC,
TOPLAS, TOS, TOSEM, TOSN, TRETS, TSAS, TSLP, TWEB.
Please download:
http://www.acm.org/publications/word_style/V2-ACM-SMALL-AUGUST-2012.zip
2. The Large Format Single Column is used for the following journal and transactions:
JOCCH, TAP, TOMCCAP
Please download:
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http://www.acm.org/publications/word_style/V2-ACM-LARGE-AUGUST-2012.zip
3. The Large File Double Column is used for:
TOG
Please download:
http://www.acm.org/publications/word_style/V2-ACM-TOG-AUGUST-2012.zip
Please note that all instructions on how to use these files are included in the zipped file; for your
convenience, sample articles in PDF format are also included.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Should you need technical help working with your MS-Word files, please direct your query to
helpdesk@aptaracorp.com
All email queries will be responded to within 24 hours.
COMPUTING CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM
An important aspect of preparing your paper for publication by ACM is to provide the proper subject
classification for your paper by choosing the appropriate categories from the ACM Computing
Classification System (CCS). As the subject expert, you are best qualified to insert these indexing
terms. The CCS taxonomy is a four-level tree with three alpha-numerically coded levels and an uncoded level of subject descriptors (usually appearing at the fourth, most granular level). It is
important that you choose only one Primary Subject Classification. You may choose other secondary
classifications as well. Follow the usage guidelines found here:
http://www.acm.org/class/how_to_use.html
Accurate categorization provides the reader with a quick content reference and facilitates the search
for related literature. Several important Digital Library functions rely on the CCS indexing, including
the identification of areas of expertise on Author Profile pages.
ACM IN-TEXT CITATION STYLE
The in-text citation style is as follows: For parenthetical citations we enclose the last name of the first
author and year of publication, thus: [Burando 2007]; when there are two authors, both last names
and the year of publication are included [Burando and Lee 2007]; when there are more than two
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authors, we cite the last name of the first author followed by an "et al." [Burando et al. 2007].
Sequential parenthetical citations are enclosed in square brackets and separated by semi-colons, thus
[Burando 2007; Burando and Lee 2007]. When a citation is part of a sentence, the name of the author
is NOT enclosed in brackets, but the year is: "So we see that Burando et al. [2007]…"
When an author has more than one article published in the same year, the citation becomes [Burando
2007a] and [Burando 2007b].
SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT REFERENCE FORMATS
Much time is spent by the production staff in putting the references of a manuscript in order during
the copyediting process. In some papers, up to 50% of the time could be spent doing just this. In
addition, all these have to be entered into the file by our supplier. Reference linking and citation
counts are facilitated by use of these standard reference formats. Please adhere to the reference
formats that we use for ACM publications, because a manuscript in which references do not follow the
standard format can cost both time and money.
By using your BibTeX (.bib) file with the appropriate .bst file (ACM Reference Format) your references
should require minimum editing.
Here are examples of the most common reference types formatted for ACM journals.
For a paginated article in a journal:
Patricia S. Abril and Robert Plant. 2007. The patent holder\u2019s dilemma: Buy, sell, or
troll? Commun. ACM 50, 1 (Jan. 2007), 36-44. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1188913.1188915
For an enumerated article in a journal:
Sarah Cohen, Werner Nutt, and Yehoshua Sagic. 2007. Deciding equivalances among conjunctive
aggregate queries. J. ACM 54, 2, Article 5 (April 2007), 50 pages.
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1219092.1219093
For a monograph (whole book):
David Kosiur. 2001. Understanding Policy-Based Networking (2nd. ed.). Wiley, New York, NY.
For a divisible book (anthology or compilation):
Ian Editor (Ed.). 2007. The title of book one (1st. ed.). The name of the series one, Vol. 9. University
of Chicago Press, Chicago. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/3-540-09237-4
For a multi-volume work (as a book):
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Donald E. Knuth. 1997. The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 1: Fundamental Algorithms (3rd. ed.).
Addison Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc.
For a (paginated proceedings) article in a conference proceedings (conference, symposium
or workshop):
Sten Andler. 1979. Predicate Path expressions. In Proceedings of the 6th. ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN
symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL \u201979). ACM Press, New York, NY,
226-236. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/567752.567774
For a Doctoral dissertation:
Kenneth L. Clarkson. 1985. Algorithms for Closest-Point Problems (Computational Geometry). Ph.D.
Dissertation. Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. UMI Order Number: AAT 8506171.
For a Master's Thesis:
David A. Anisi. 2003. Optimal Motion Control of a Ground Vehicle. Master\u2019s thesis. Royal
Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden.
For a technical report:
Greg Turk and David Banks. 1996. Image-guided streamline placement. Technical Report I-CA2200.
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA. 453-460 pages.
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/237170.237285
For a Patent:
Joseph Scientist. 2009. The fountain of youth. (Aug. 2009). Patent No. 12345, Filed July 1st., 2008,
Issued Aug. 9th., 2009.
For an informally published work:
David Harel. 1978. LOGICS of Programs: AXIOMATICS and DESCRIPTIVE POWER. MIT Research Lab
Technical Report TR-200. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
For an online document/WWW resource:
Harry Thornburg. 2001. Introduction to Bayesian Statistics. (March 2001). Retrieved March 2, 2005
from http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/bayes/bayes.html
For a Video (two examples):
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Dave Novak. 2003. Solder man. Video. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2003 Video Review on Animation theater
Program: Part I - Vol. 145 (July 27-27, 2003). ACM Press, New York, NY, 4.
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/99.9999/woot07-S422
Barack Obama. 2008. A more perfect union. Video. (5 March 2008). Retrieved March 21, 2008 from
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6528042696351994555
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