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IEEE Citation Guide: Home

Learn how to format your paper, find citation and paper templates, and more helpful resource on the IEEE citation style.

General Formatting

  • Numbering: Your list of sources will have numbers that stick out to the left, forming their own column. Think of it like an outline where the numbers are clearly separated. These numbers will be in square brackets, like [1], [2], etc., and will be on the same line as the start of the reference.
  • References are listed in order by which they appear in your paper: the first source you use in your paper will be the first in your list of reference and will be represented by [1] throughout your paper.
  • If you are citing multiple sources in the same sentence, you can list as many citation numbers as needed. Ex. [5],[8],[15] or [2]-[5]

  • One Reference Per Number: Each number in your reference list should correspond to only one source. Don't combine multiple sources under a single number.

  • Initials and Last Name: When you write an author's name, use their initial(s) followed by their last name. For example, Michael Smith Jr. becomes M. Smith Jr.
  • No Commas Before Jr., Sr., III: Don't put commas before suffixes like Jr., Sr., or III in names. So, it should be R. Barnett Sr., not R. Barnett, Sr.
  • Multiple Authors (IEEE): For IEEE publications, if there are six or fewer authors, list all of them. If there are more than six, write the first author's name followed by "et al." (which means "and others").
  • Multiple Authors (Non-IEEE): For publications that aren't IEEE, you can use "et al." even if there are fewer than six authors.
  • Always capitalize proper nouns
  • Use sentence case (only capitalize first letter of first word and proper nouns) for:
    • Titles of journal articles
    • Websites
    • And other content  
  • Use title case (capitalize the first letter of every word) for: 
    • Journal Names
    • Titles of Books/eBooks
    • Title of Datasets
    • Titles of Videos
    • Titles of Manual
  • IEEE Transactions: If you're citing an IEEE Transactions article and you can't find the issue number or month, check IEEE Xplore to see if that information is available in the publication itself. Keep in mind that not all IEEE publications have issue numbers and months.
  • Early Access Articles: For articles that are published online before they appear in a specific issue, use the "Date of Publication" instead of the volume and issue number.
  • Articles within a Volume: If the article is part of a larger volume, include the volume and issue publication date.
  • Two Months for the Same Issue: If a journal issue covers two months (like July/August), write them with a slash in between (e.g., Jul./Aug.) followed by the year.
  • Include Accessed Date: put the word accessed followed by a colon, then use month day, year format for the date.
    • Ex. Accessed: Apr 29, 2025
  • Indicate that you found this source online: Include the word [Online] in brackets followed by a period.
    • Ex. [Online].
  • Include URL or DOI: find the DOI or the permalink to the article on the database and copy/paste it at the end of your citation after the word Available.

Example of online journal article below:

Example of Online Journal Article Reference List Entry

Example of In-Text Citation

Paper Formatting Screenshot

IEEE Citation Guides

IEEE Paper Template

IEEE Video Tutorial