IEEE citation style numbers your sources in square brackets, such as [1], in the order you first cite them, and lists them in that same numbered order in a reference list. It is the standard style in electrical engineering, computer science and related fields.
This guide covers in-text rules, reference list formatting and examples for the source types technical students cite most often.
How IEEE Citations Work
Each source gets a number the first time you cite it, and keeps that number every time you cite it again. The reference list is ordered by number, not alphabetically.
Authors are written initials first ("J. K. Smith"), article titles go in quotation marks, and journal and book titles go in italics.
In-Text Citations
Place the bracketed number where the information is used, inside the sentence punctuation. The bracket sits on the line, not in superscript.
Convolutional networks perform strongly on image classification [1].
Several attention-based models have been proposed [2], [4], and later work extended them [5]–[7].
As shown in [3], compression reduces latency on edge devices.
LeCun et al. [1] describe the main deep learning architectures.
- Use an en dash between the first and last numbers of a consecutive range: [5]–[7].
- Separate non-consecutive citations with commas: [2], [4].
- Reuse a source's original number whenever you cite it again.
- When naming authors in the sentence, use "et al." for three or more authors.
A bracket number can act as a noun, as in "see [3]", so you do not need "reference [3]" every time.
Reference List Rules
| Element | IEEE rule |
|---|---|
| Heading | References |
| Order | Numerical, in order of first citation |
| Authors | Initials then surname: A. B. Author; list up to the number your guide allows, with "and" before the last |
| Article, chapter and paper titles | In quotation marks, with a comma inside the closing quotation mark |
| Journal, book and proceedings titles | Italics; journal names abbreviated using IEEE abbreviations |
| Volume, issue, pages | vol. X, no. X, pp. xx–xx |
| Dates | Abbreviated month and year for journals; year for books |
| DOI | At the end, written as doi: 10.xxxx |
For works with many authors, IEEE allows the first author's name followed by et al. in the reference list. Departments set different thresholds, so check your course guide.
Journal Article
[n] A. A. Author, B. B. Author, and C. C. Author, "Title of article," Abbrev. Journal, vol. X, no. X, pp. xx–xx, Mon. Year, doi: xxx.
[1] Y. LeCun, Y. Bengio, and G. Hinton, "Deep learning," Nature, vol. 521, no. 7553, pp. 436–444, May 2015, doi: 10.1038/nature14539.
IEEE journals use standard abbreviations, for example IEEE Trans. Neural Netw. Learn. Syst. rather than the full title.
Conference Paper
Conference proceedings are a major source type in computing and engineering, so format them carefully.
[n] A. A. Author, "Title of paper," in Abbrev. Name of Conf., City, Country, Year, pp. xx–xx.
[2] A. Vaswani et al., "Attention is all you need," in Proc. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst., Long Beach, CA, USA, 2017, pp. 5998–6008.
Include a DOI at the end if the paper has one.
Book and Book Chapter
[n] A. A. Author, Title of Book, xth ed. City, Country: Publisher, Year. [n] A. A. Author, "Title of chapter," in Title of Book, B. B. Editor, Ed. City, Country: Publisher, Year, pp. xx–xx.
[3] I. Goodfellow, Y. Bengio, and A. Courville, Deep Learning. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2016.
For US publishers, include the state abbreviation after the city. Omit the edition for first editions.
Website and Online Sources
[n] Author or Organization, "Title of page," Website Name. Accessed: Mon. Day, Year. [Online]. Available: URL
[4] IEEE, "IEEE Reference Guide," IEEE Author Center. Accessed: Oct. 9, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org
Use the organization as the author when no person is named. Always include the access date, because web pages change.
Standards, Theses and Reports
Technical work often cites standards and theses. These formats are common:
[n] Title of Standard, Standard number, Year. [n] A. A. Author, "Title of thesis," Ph.D. dissertation, Dept., Univ., City, Country, Year. [n] A. A. Author, "Title of report," Company or Institution, City, Country, Rep. no., Year.
[5] IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic, IEEE Std 754-2019, 2019.
[6] R. T. Osei, "Low-power scheduling for wireless sensor networks," M.S. thesis, Dept. Elect. Eng., Univ. of Leeds, Leeds, U.K., 2024.
Sample Reference List
References
[1] Y. LeCun, Y. Bengio, and G. Hinton, "Deep learning," Nature, vol. 521, no. 7553, pp. 436–444, May 2015, doi: 10.1038/nature14539.
[2] A. Vaswani et al., "Attention is all you need," in Proc. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst., Long Beach, CA, USA, 2017, pp. 5998–6008.
[3] I. Goodfellow, Y. Bengio, and A. Courville, Deep Learning. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2016.
Notice the list follows citation order, not alphabetical order, and each entry keeps its bracket number.
Common IEEE Mistakes
- Sorting the reference list alphabetically.
- Writing authors surname first, as in Vancouver.
- Leaving out quotation marks around article and paper titles.
- Writing journal names in full when IEEE abbreviations exist.
- Formatting a conference paper like a journal article.
- Giving a reused source a new number.
- Placing the bracket after the full stop.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Numbered. Sources are listed in the order they are first cited in the text, not alphabetically.
Inside the sentence, before the punctuation, in square brackets on the line: "...as shown in [3]."
Reuse its original number. Each source appears once in the reference list.
Use an en dash between the first and last numbers, each in its own brackets: [2]–[5].
Yes. IEEE uses standard abbreviations for journal and conference titles, written in italics.
Both are numbered. IEEE writes initials before surnames and puts titles of articles in quotation marks; Vancouver writes surnames first and uses no quotation marks.