ACM LaTeX Style Guide

By way of example, the following files instruct you on how to prepare an article for the ACM journal or transactions using LaTeX by using the style file and class file. The .pdf file shows you the final result you wish to obtain, while the .tex and .bib files show you how to get that result.

instructions.pdf

instructions.tex

instructions.bib

In order to typeset your document, you will need the following LaTeX class and style files (note, you must use LaTeX2e):

acmtrans2m.cls      -               This is the LaTeX class file

acmtrans.bst           -               This is the BibTeX style file

This is a generic style file designed for all ACM journals and transactions, so some customization maybe necessary.

COMPUTING CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

An important aspect of preparing your paper for publication by ACM Press is to provide the proper indexing and retrieval information from the ACM Computing Classification System (CCS). We need to have you prepare the categories and general terms for your paper because you are the expert on the contents of your paper. The CCS involves a four-level tree that has three coded levels and an uncoded level of subject descriptors (usually appearing at the fourth level). This tree comprises the categories and subject descriptors. It is important that there'll be ONLY one Primary level! If you are not yet familiar with this scheme, we suggest that you take a look at

http://www.acm.org/about/class/how-to-use.

This is beneficial to you because accurate categorization provides the reader with quick content reference, facilitating the search for related literature, as well as searches for your work in ACM's Digital Library and on other online resources. It also ensures correct placement when a review appears in Computing Reviews.

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 authors, we cite the last name of the first author followed by an "et al." [Burando et al. 2007]; when a number of authors are cited parenthetically we list the last name and year, or two last names and year, or the last name of the first author followed by "et al." and year of publication. All parenthetical citations are enclosed in square brackets and separated by semi-colons, thus: [Burando 2007; Burando and Lee 2007; Burando et al. 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 FORMAT

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. So, it is important that authors strictly adhere to the reference format that we use for ACM publications, because a manuscript in which references do not follow the standard format can cost us both time and monies.

Since by simply using the BibTeX with the acmtrans.bst you will arrive at proper formatting of the references, it is important that every attempt should be made to do this.

Below is the correct reference format for all ACM publications. Since all of these references eventually will become part of the Citations Library, it is important that every effort be made to adhere to this format. First of all, all entries are presented in alphabetical order. Secondly, all occurrences of names of authors and/or editors should be set in caps.

For journal:

ABDELBAR, A.M., AND HEDETNIEMI, S.M. 1998. Approximating MAPs for belief networks in NP-hard and other theorems. Artificial Intelligence 102, 21-38.

For book:

GINSBERG, M. 1987. Readings in Nonmonotonic Reasoning. Morgan Kaufmann, Los Altos, CA.

For article in a book of collection:

GREINER, R. 1999. Explanation-based learning. In The Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, R. WILSON AND F. KEIL, Eds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 301-303.

For Conference Proceedings:

MAREK, W., AND TRUSZCZYNSKI, M. 1989. Relating autoepistemic and default logics. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Toronto, Canada, May 1989, H. BRACHMAN AND R. REITER, Eds. Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo, CA, 276-288.