ACM BibTeX Formatting

Here are examples of the most common reference types in ACM BibTeX format.

For a paginated article in a journal:

  • @article{Abril:2007:PHD:1188913.1188915,
    author = {Abril, Patricia S. and Plant, Robert},
    title = {The Patent Holder's Dilemma: Buy, Sell, or Troll?},
    journal = {Commun. ACM},
    issue_date = {January 2007},
    volume = {50},
    number = {1},
    month = jan,
    year = {2007},
    issn = {0001-0782},
    pages = {36--44},
    numpages = {9},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/1188913.1188915},
    doi = {10.1145/1188913.1188915},
    acmid = {1188915},
    publisher = {ACM},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
    }

For an enumerated article in a journal:

  • @article{Cohen:2007:DEC:1219092.1219093,
    author = {Cohen, Sara and Nutt, Werner and Sagiv, Yehoshua},
    title = {Deciding Equivalences Among Conjunctive Aggregate Queries},
    journal = {J. ACM},
    issue_date = {April 2007},
    volume = {54},
    number = {2},
    month = apr,
    year = {2007},
    issn = {0004-5411},
    articleno = {5},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/1219092.1219093},
    doi = {10.1145/1219092.1219093},
    acmid = {1219093},
    publisher = {ACM},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
    keywords = {Aggregation, Datalog, bag-set semantics, query equivalence},

For a monograph (whole book):

  • @book{Kosiur:2001:UPN:381159,
    author = {Kosiur, Dave},
    title = {Understanding Policy-based Networking},
    year = {2001},
    isbn = {0-471-38804-1},
    publisher = {John Wiley \& Sons, Inc.}, address = {New York, NY, USA},
    }

For a divisible book (anthology or compilation):

  • @book{Oviatt:2017:HMI:3015783,
    editor = {Oviatt, Sharon and Schuller, Bj\"{o}rn and Cohen, Philip R. and Sonntag, Daniel and Potamianos, Gerasimos and Kr\"{u}ger, Antonio},
    title = {The Handbook of Multimodal-Multisensor Interfaces: Foundations, User Modeling, and Common Modality Combinations},
    year = {2017},
    isbn = {978-1-97000-167-9},
    publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery and Morgan \&\#38; Claypool},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
    }

For a multi-volume work (as a book):

  • @book{Knuth:2009:ACP:1610541, author = {Knuth, Donald E.},
    title = {The Art of Computer Programming: Fascicles 0-4},
    year = {2009}, isbn = {0321637135}, edition = {1st},
    Volume = {4}, publisher = {Addison-Wesley Professional},
    }

For a (paginated proceedings) article in a conference proceedings (conference, symposium or workshop):

  • @inproceedings{Andler:1979:PPE:567752.567774,
    author = {Andler, Sten},
    title = {Predicate Path Expressions},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages},
    series = {POPL '79},
    year = {1979},
    location = {San Antonio, Texas},
    pages = {226--236},
    numpages = {11},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/567752.567774},
    doi = {10.1145/567752.567774},
    acmid = {567774},
    publisher = {ACM},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
    }

For a Patent:

  • @misc{JoeScientist001,
    author ={Joseph Scientist},
    year ={2009},
    title ={The fountain of youth},
    note ={Patent No. 12345, Filed July 1st., 2008, Issued Aug. 9th., 2009},
    url ={},
    month ={aug},
    lastaccessed = {},
    }

For an informally published work (such as some technical reports and dissertations):

  • Technical Report:

    • @techreport{Harel:1978:LPA:889810,
      author = {Harel, D.},
      title = {LOGICS OF PROGRAMS: AXIOMATICS AND DESCRIPTIVE POWER}, year = {1978},
      source = {http://www.ncstrl.org:8900/ncstrl/servlet/search?formname=detail\&id=oai%3Ancstrlh%3Amitai%3AMIT-LCS%2F%2FMIT%2FLCS%2FTR-200},
      publisher = {Massachusetts Institute of Technology},
      address = {Cambridge, MA, USA},
      }
  • Doctoral dissertation:

    • @phdthesis{Clarkson:1985:ACP:911891,
      author = {Clarkson, Kenneth Lee}, advisor = {Yao, Andrew C.},
      title = {Algorithms for Closest-point Problems (Computational Geometry)},
      year = {1985},
      note = {AAT 8506171},
      publisher = {Stanford University},
      address = {Stanford, CA, USA},
      }
  • Master's Thesis:

    • @mastersthesis{Bruwer:1986:DMC:904765,
      author = {Bruwer, Frederick Johannes},
      title = {Digital Modem with Combined Convolutional Coding and Modulation for Speech Band Data Communication. (Afrikaans Text)},
      year = {1986},
      note = {AAI0662099},
      }

For an online document/WWW resource:Website year can be found at the bottom of the website page or by viewing page properties/source to see when the page was last modified.

  • @online{Thornburg01,
    author ={Harry Thornburg},
    year = {2001},
    title ={Introduction to Bayesian Statistics},
    url ={http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/bayes/bayes.html},
    month ={mar},
    lastaccessed ={March 2, 2005},
    }
  • @misc{ acm:###,
    author = {ACM},
    title = {Association for Computing Machinery: Advancing Computing as a Science & Profession},
    url = {http://www.acm.org/}
    }
  • @misc{ wiki:###,
    author = {Wikipedia},
    title = {{W}ikipedia{,} The Free Encyclopedia},
    year = {2017},
    url = {https://www.wikipedia.org/}
    }

For a Video (two examples):

  • @inproceedings{Novak:2003:SM:1006091.1006096,
    note = {Director-Novak, Dave},
    title = {Solder Man},
    booktitle = {ACM SIGGRAPH 2003 Video Review on Animation Theater Program: Part 1 - Volume 145},
    series = {SVR '03},
    year = {2003},
    pages = {4--},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/1006091.1006096},
    doi = {10.1145/1006091.1006096},
    acmid = {1006096},
    publisher = {ACM},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
    }
  • @misc{Obama08,
    author= {Barack Obama},
    year= {2008},
    title = {A more perfect union},
    url= {http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6528042696351994555},
    month = {mar},
    lastaccessed = {March 21, 2008},
    note = {},
    }

For arXiv:

  • @article{hep-ph/9609357,
    Author = {Martin Beneke and Gerhard Buchalla and Isard Dunietz},
    Title = {Mixing-induced CP Asymmetries in Inclusive $B$ Decays},
    Year = {1996},
    Eprint = {arXiv:hep-ph/9609357},
    doi = {10.1016/S0370-2693(96)01648-6},
    }

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