Official GuideUpdated: January 2024

Engineering Precision: IEEE Citation Standards

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) style is the standard for technical and engineering publications. This guide covers the IEEE citation standards.

Table of Contents

Complexity

Intermediate / Advanced

Primary Use

Engineering & Technology

In-text Style

Bracketed Numbers [1]

01.Basic Formatting Rules

Author Names

Initials precede surnames. List all authors up to 6; use "et al." beyond that.

Example: A. J. Smith and J. B. Doe

Title Standards

Article titles use quotation marks. Journal titles are italicized.

Example: "Deep Learning for ECG Analysis," IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng.

Digital Identifiers

DOIs are recommended for all digital sources. Use the full https link.

Example: https://doi.org/10.1109/TBME.2024.001

Punctuation

Commas separate elements. Use periods only at the end of a citation.

Format: A. Author, "Title," Journal, vol. X, no. Y, pp. Z1–Z2, Year.

02.In-Text Citations

IEEE uses bracketed numerical citations in order of appearance.

Numbers in square brackets, e.g., [1], [2].
Multiple references: [1], [2] or [1]–[3] for ranges.
Reference numbers are placed before punctuation.

Sample Text

Deep learning approaches have shown significant improvements in signal processing [1], [2]. While traditional methods remain relevant [3]–[5], the consensus favors hybrid architectures [1], [6].

03.Reference List

Numerical Order

References are numbered in the order they are first cited in the text.

Author Format

Initials first, then surname. Example: A. B. Smith and C. D. Jones.

Article Titles

Article titles appear in quotation marks. Journal names are italicized.

04.Source Type Examples

Journal ArticleTry this citation

Structure:

A. Author, "Title of article," Abbrev. Journal, vol. X, no. Y, pp. Z1–Z2, Month Year.

[1] Y. Bengio, A. Courville, and P. Vincent, "Representation learning: A review," IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell., vol. 35, no. 8, pp. 1798–1828, Aug. 2013.

Conference PaperTry this citation

Structure:

A. Author, "Title," in Proc. Conf. Name, Year, pp. Z1–Z2.

[2] J. Smith and K. Lee, "Neural network optimization," in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Acoust., Speech Signal Process. (ICASSP), 2024, pp. 123–127.

WebsiteTry this citation

Structure:

A. Author. Title. [Online]. Available: URL. [Accessed: Date].

[3] IEEE Standards Association. "IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs." [Online]. Available: https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/802.11/. [Accessed: Jan. 15, 2024].

05.Common Mistakes

Incorrect Example

J. Smith, "Title," JAMA, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 100-105.

Missing year and DOI. IEEE requires complete bibliographic information for verification.

Correct Example

J. Smith, "Title," JAMA, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 100–105, Mar. 2023.

Complete citation with en-dash for page ranges, abbreviated month, and year.

06.Precision Chart: Engineering Format Comparisons

Feature	IEEE Style	ACM Style	APA 7th Ed
In-text Style	Brackets [1]	Brackets [1]	Author, Year (2020)
Ordering	Order of appearance	Alphabetical	Alphabetical
Title Format	Quotes ("Title")	Title Case	Sentence Case
DOI Style	Full https URL	Full https URL	doi:xx.xxxx