IEEE Citation Style Guide: General Formatting Rules

The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)  is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. In addition to publishing journals, magazines, and conference proceedings, IEEE also makes standards for a wide variety of industries.

Each time you use someone's idea, words, and information, you should cite it. While citing your sources in IEEE style, provide both in-text citations and reference lists.

In text (after a paraphrase, summary, or direct quote) - acknowledge the author of the idea and where to find it in your reference list. 

Reference list (at the end of your paper) - to allow the reader to track down your sources.

• For multiple authors, list the names in order presented in the source. 
• If there are more than six authors, use et al. after the name of the first author. Do not use a comma before et al.
• If there is no author, begin the entry with the title of the work, including the appropriate capitalization and italics formatting.

• Give the complete date that the work was published. If a day or month is provided, list the date as (Month Day, Year).
• If a publication or creation date cannot be found on a website, use "n.d."
• If no date is available, write n.d. in parentheses, followed by a period.

• Capitalize all important words in a title (and subtitle if given) of a book, periodical, or conference. 
• Capitalize the first word of an article title (and subtitle if given)
• Italicize the title of a book or periodical. Place quotation marks around the title of a web document, article title, and book chapter.
• Give edition information directly after the title (if applicable). Do not italicize the edition.

• Provide the location of the publisher, followed by a colon(:) and the name of the publisher, for books.
• Indicate the volume number, issue number, and page range after the periodical title, for periodicals.

When including an exact quotation, pagination is cited as p. for a single page or pp. for multiple pages.

Single page      

… as demonstrated in [5, p. 21]

Page range    

… as stated by [5, pp. 13-17]

Paragraph    

… as detailed in [4, para. 6.2]

Chapter      

… as argued in [6, Ch. 2, pp. 25-36]

Example    

… as shown [15, Example 2]

Section      

… as noted in [6, Sec. 2.3]

No need to provide the page number(s) if:

• you are referring to an entire work 

• you are paraphrasing or summarizing a longer section 

• the work is only one page