| name | ieee-style |
| category | publication |
| discipline | engineering |
| description | IEEE citation and formatting rules for engineering journals and conferences |
IEEE Style
Citation and formatting rules based on the IEEE Reference Guide. Used by all IEEE Transactions, IEEE conferences, and many engineering journals.
When to Use
- When submitting to any IEEE journal or conference
- When the target venue specifies IEEE citation format
- When submitting to engineering journals that follow IEEE conventions
Protocol
1. In-Text Citations
- Use Arabic numerals in square brackets: [1], [2], [3]
- Number references in the order they first appear in the text
- Place brackets before punctuation, with a space before the bracket
- Multiple citations: [1], [2] or [1]-[3] for consecutive ranges
- Use the citation number as a noun when needed: "As shown in [5]..."
Examples:
Recent work has shown promising results [1].
Several studies [2]-[4] have confirmed this finding.
As demonstrated in [5], the algorithm achieves state-of-the-art performance.
The approach builds on [1] and [6].
Smith et al. [7] proposed a novel framework.
2. Reference List Format
References are listed numerically in the order cited, with the number in square brackets.
2.1 Author Names
- Format: First initial(s). Last name (e.g., J. Smith, A. B. Jones)
- Multiple authors: separate with commas; use "and" before the last author
- Up to 6 authors: list all
- 7 or more authors: list the first 3 authors followed by et al.
- Corporate authors: use the organization name as-is
2.2 Journal Article
Format:
[N] A. Author, B. Author, and C. Author, "Title of article," Abbreviated Journal Name,
vol. X, no. Y, pp. Z1-Z2, Month Year, doi: 10.xxxx/xxxxx.
Rules:
- Article title: in double quotes, sentence case
- Journal name: in italics, abbreviated per IEEE standard
- Volume, number, pages, month, year follow specific format
- Include DOI when available
Example:
[1] S. Zhang, C. Zhu, J. K. O. Sin, and P. K. T. Mok, "A novel ultrathin elevated
channel low-temperature poly-Si TFT," IEEE Electron Device Lett., vol. 20, no. 11,
pp. 569-571, Nov. 1999, doi: 10.1109/55.798012.
Example -- 7+ authors:
[2] M. Ito, K. Takahashi, S. Yamamoto, et al., "Adaptive beamforming for massive MIMO
systems," IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 22, no. 8, pp. 5432-5445, Aug. 2023,
doi: 10.1109/TWC.2023.1234567.
Example -- early access:
[3] L. Chen and R. Wang, "Deep reinforcement learning for network slicing," IEEE Trans.
Netw. Service Manag., early access, Jun. 2024, doi: 10.1109/TNSM.2024.3456789.
2.3 Conference Paper
Format:
[N] A. Author, "Title of paper," in Proc. Conference Name, City, State/Country, Year,
pp. X-Y, doi: 10.xxxx/xxxxx.
Example:
[4] D. B. Payne and H. G. Gunhold, "Digital sundials and broadband communications," in
Proc. 3rd Annu. Conf. Explor. Technol. (ExplTech), Miami, FL, USA, 2019, pp. 113-117,
doi: 10.1109/ExplTech.2019.1234567.
Example -- without page numbers (common for recent conferences):
[5] A. Vaswani et al., "Attention is all you need," in Proc. Adv. Neural Inf. Process.
Syst. (NeurIPS), Long Beach, CA, USA, 2017, pp. 5998-6008.
2.4 Book
Format:
[N] A. Author, Title of Book, edition. City, State/Country: Publisher, Year.
Example:
[6] B. Klaus and P. Horn, Robot Vision, 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2005.
Example -- edited book:
[7] D. Sarunyagate, Ed., Lasers. New York, NY, USA: McGraw-Hill, 1996.
2.5 Book Chapter
Format:
[N] A. Author, "Title of chapter," in Title of Book, A. Editor, Ed., edition. City,
State/Country: Publisher, Year, pp. X-Y.
Example:
[8] L. Stein, "Random sampling," in Handbook of Computer Science, A. B. Tucker, Ed.,
2nd ed. Boca Raton, FL, USA: CRC Press, 2004, pp. 24.1-24.11.
2.6 Standard
Format:
[N] Title of Standard, Standard Number, Organization, City, State/Country, Year.
Example:
[9] IEEE Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area Networks, IEEE Std. 802.11-2020,
IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2021.
2.7 Patent
Format:
[N] A. Author, "Title of patent," Country Patent Number, Month Day, Year.
Example:
[10] J. P. Wilkinson, "Nonlinear resonant circuit devices," U.S. Patent 3 624 125,
Jul. 16, 1990.
2.8 Online Source
Format:
[N] A. Author. "Title of page." Website Name. URL (accessed Mon. Day, Year).
Example:
[11] J. Jones. "Networks." Encyclopaedia Britannica. [Online]. Available:
https://www.britannica.com/technology/networks (accessed Jan. 15, 2024).
Example -- no author:
[12] "How to use Python for data science." Real Python. [Online]. Available:
https://realpython.com/data-science/ (accessed Mar. 10, 2024).
2.9 Thesis / Dissertation
Format:
[N] A. Author, "Title of thesis," M.S./Ph.D. thesis/dissertation, Dept., Univ., City,
State/Country, Year.
Example:
[13] N. Kawasaki, "Parametric study of thermal and chemical nonequilibrium nozzle flow,"
M.S. thesis, Dept. Electron. Eng., Osaka Univ., Osaka, Japan, 1993.
2.10 arXiv Preprint
Format:
[N] A. Author, "Title," arXiv:XXXX.XXXXX, Year.
Example:
[14] A. Radford, J. Wu, R. Child, D. Luan, D. Amodei, and I. Sutskever, "Language models
are unsupervised multitask learners," arXiv:2005.14165, 2020.
2.11 Technical Report
Format:
[N] A. Author, "Title of report," Organization, City, State/Country, Report Number, Year.
Example:
[15] E. E. Reber, R. L. Michell, and C. J. Carter, "Oxygen absorption in the earth's
atmosphere," Aerospace Corp., Los Angeles, CA, USA, Tech. Rep. TR-0200, 1988.
3. Journal Name Abbreviations
Use IEEE standard abbreviations. Common examples:
| Full Name | Abbreviation |
|---|
| IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence | IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. |
| IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems | IEEE Trans. Neural Netw. Learn. Syst. |
| IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing | IEEE Trans. Signal Process. |
| IEEE Communications Letters | IEEE Commun. Lett. |
| IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications | IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun. |
| IEEE Access | IEEE Access |
| Proceedings of the IEEE | Proc. IEEE |
Reference for abbreviations: IEEE Reference Guide, Appendix, or https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/
4. Conference Name Abbreviations
- Use "Proc." for Proceedings
- Abbreviate conference names: "Int." for International, "Conf." for Conference, "Symp." for Symposium
- Include the acronym in parentheses after the abbreviated name
- Include the ordinal number if applicable
Common examples:
Proc. IEEE Conf. Comput. Vis. Pattern Recognit. (CVPR)
Proc. Int. Conf. Mach. Learn. (ICML)
Proc. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst. (NeurIPS)
Proc. Annu. Meeting Assoc. Comput. Linguist. (ACL)
Proc. Int. Conf. Learn. Represent. (ICLR)
Proc. AAAI Conf. Artif. Intell. (AAAI)
5. DOI Format
- Include DOI at the end of the reference when available
- Format:
doi: 10.xxxx/xxxxx. (lowercase "doi", space after colon, period at end)
- If no DOI, include URL with access date for online sources
6. Formatting Conventions
- Titles of articles and papers: in double quotes, sentence case
- Book and journal titles: in italics
- Volume: "vol." (lowercase, abbreviated)
- Number/Issue: "no." (lowercase, abbreviated)
- Pages: "pp." for range, "p." for single page
- Months: abbreviated to first 3 letters (Jan., Feb., Mar., etc.)
- Edition: "2nd ed.", "3rd ed.", etc.
- Editor: "Ed." (singular), "Eds." (plural)
Checklist
Citations
References
Formatting
References
