Guides: Electrical and Computer Engineering: IEEE Citation Style

Citation Styles for Engineering

APA is becoming more often used in the engineering classes as a citation style.

Texas Tech has a great guide for the APA Style guide located here.

The biggest thing to remember about citations is that they are based on a pattern. The second biggest thing is that the citation generators, either through the University Libraries or other places will not always give you the correct information. So you should follow the pattern of the citation style and check the ones you copy and paste from the databases against the examples on our pages or within the APA style guide.

IEEE Citation Style examples

IEEE Citation Guidelines
IEEE's publication on citation standards covers books, conference technical articles, online sources, periodicals, theses, and more.
IEEE Editorial Style Manual
This style manual provides editorial guidance for IEEE Transactions, Journals, and Letters. It outlines how to divide the parts of a paper, cite figures and tables, and it gives guidelines for specific grammar rules.

IEEE Article Templates

This site gives the nitty-gritty details on how to edit, format, and submit a paper for IEEE review and publication.

The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a professional organization supporting many branches of engineering, computer science, and information technology. In addition to publishing journals, magazines, and conference proceedings, IEEE also makes many standards for a wide variety of industries.

IEEE citation style includes in-text citations, numbered in square brackets, which refer to the full citation listed in the reference list at the end of the paper. The reference list is organized numerically, not alphabetically. For examples, see the IEEE Editorial Style Manual.

The Basics:

In-text Citing It is not necessary to mention an author's name, pages used, or date of publication in the in-text citation. Instead, refer to the source with a number in a square bracket, e.g. [1], that will then correspond to the full citation in your reference list.

Place bracketed citations within the line of text, before any punctuation, with a space before the first bracket.
Number your sources as you cite them in the paper. Once you have referred to a source and given it a number, continue to use that number as you cite that source throughout the paper.
When citing multiple sources at once, the preferred method is to list each number separately, in its own brackets, using a comma or dash bteween numbers, as such: [1], [3], [5] or [1] - [5].

The below examples are from Murdoch University's IEEE Style LibGuide.

Examples of in-text citations:

"...end of the line for my research [13]."

"This theory was first put forward in 1987 [1]."

"Scholtz [2] has argued that..."

"Several recent studies [3], [4], [15], [16] have suggested that...."

"For example, see [7]."

Creating a Reference List The Reference List appears at the end of your paper and provides the full citations for all the references you have used. List all references numerically in the order they've been cited within the paper, and include the bracketed number at the beginning of each reference.

Title your list as References either centered or aligned left at the top of the page.
Create a hanging indent for each reference with the bracketed numbers flush with the left side of the page. The hanging indent highlights the numerical sequence of your references.
The author's name is listed as first initial, last name. Example: Adel Al Muhairy would be cited as A. Al Muhairy (NOT Al Muhairy, Adel).
The title of an article is listed in quotation marks.
The title of a journal or book is listed in italics.

The below examples are from the IEEE Citation Reference Guide and Murdoch University's IEEE Style LibGuide.

Examples of citations for different materials:

Material Type	Works Cited
Book in print	[1] B. Klaus and P. Horn, Robot Vision. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986.
Chapter in book	[2] L. Stein, “Random patterns,” in Computers and You, J. S. Brake, Ed. New York: Wiley, 1994, pp. 55-70.
eBook	[3] L. Bass, P. Clements, and R. Kazman, Software Architecture in Practice, 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 2003. [E-book] Available: Safari e-book.
Journal article	[4] J. U. Duncombe, "Infrared navigation - Part I: An assessment of feasability," IEEE Trans. Electron. Devices, vol. ED-11, pp. 34-39, Jan. 1959.
eJournal (from database)	[5] H. K. Edwards and V. Sridhar, "Analysis of software requirements engineering exercises in a global virtual team setup," Journal of Global Information Management, vol. 13, no. 2, p. 21+, April-June 2005. [Online]. Available: Academic OneFile, http://find.galegroup.com. [Accessed May 31, 2005].
eJournal (from internet)	[6] A. Altun, "Understanding hypertext in the context of reading on the web: Language learners' experience," Current Issues in Education, vol. 6, no. 12, July 2003. [Online]. Available: http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume6/number12/. [Accessed Dec. 2, 2004].
Conference paper	[7] L. Liu and H. Miao, "A specification based approach to testing polymorphic attributes," in Formal Methods and Software Engineering: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods, ICFEM 2004, Seattle, WA, USA, November 8-12, 2004, J. Davies, W. Schulte, M. Barnett, Eds. Berlin: Springer, 2004. pp. 306-19.
Conference proceedings	[8] T. J. van Weert and R. K. Munro, Eds., Informatics and the Digital Society: Social, ethical and cognitive issues: IFIP TC3/WG3.1&3.2 Open Conference on Social, Ethical and Cognitive Issues of Informatics and ICT, July 22-26, 2002, Dortmund, Germany. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2003.
Newspaper article (from database)	[9] J. Riley, "Call for new look at skilled migrants," The Australian, p. 35, May 31, 2005. [Online]. Available: Factiva, http://global.factiva.com. [Accessed May 31, 2005].
Technical report	[10] J. H. Davis and J. R. Cogdell, “Calibration program for the 16-foot antenna,” Elect. Eng. Res. Lab., Univ. Texas, Austin, Tech. Memo. NGL-006-69-3, Nov. 15, 1987.
Patent	[11] J. P. Wilkinson, “Nonlinear resonant circuit devices,” U.S. Patent 3 624 125, July 16, 1990.
Standard	[12] IEEE Criteria for Class IE Electric Systems, IEEE Standard 308, 1969.
Thesis/Dissertation	[1] J. O. Williams, “Narrow-band analyzer,” Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Elect. Eng., Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA, 1993.

https://pitt.libguides.com/citationhelp/ieee