IEEE Reference Style: Numbered Citations, Six-Author Rule, Abbreviations and Examples

IEEE style is the numbered citation system used across electrical engineering, electronics, computing and telecommunications. Instead of author names and years, the text carries a bracketed number such as [1], and the reader looks that number up in the reference list at the end of the paper. The system itself is simple; the effort goes into details such as initials-first names, abbreviated journal titles, month abbreviations and online elements.

This guide was checked against the two documents IEEE publishes for authors: the IEEE Reference Guide (version 3.28.2025) and the IEEE Editorial Style Manual for Authors (updated July 29, 2024). Most examples in the boxes below are quoted from the Reference Guide. When you submit, the template of the specific journal or conference takes priority.

1. In-text citations

• Put the number in square brackets, on the line (not superscript), inside the punctuation: "... as shown in [2]."
• Number sources in order of first citation. The reference list follows that numeric order, not the alphabet.
• Reuse the original number when you cite a source again. A different page does not earn a new number.
• One source per number. Grouping several works under one number is not allowed.
• Treat the number like a noun: "in [1]", "as demonstrated in [2]". The Editorial Style Manual says to write "in [1]", not "in reference [1]".
• If you name the authors in the sentence and there are three or more, use et al.: "Wood et al. [7]". The Editorial Style Manual prefers leaving names out unless they are essential to the sentence.

Citing several sources at once

The current Reference Guide dropped ranges. In its words: "Reference ranges in text will not include an en dash. All references will be written out." Its own example turns "[1]–[4]" into "[1], [2], [3], [4]". Older papers and templates often show ranges like [2]–[5], so unless your venue asks for the old form, write every number out.

List numbers with a comma and a space: [2], [4], [5]. Do not put several numbers inside one pair of brackets like [2, 4, 5]; a comma inside the brackets is reserved for pinpoints.

Pinpointing a part of a source

Do not use ibid. or op. cit. Repeat the earlier number and add the location inside the brackets: [3, pp. 5–10], [3, Fig. 1], [3, eq. (2)], [3, Ch. 2, pp. 5–10], [3, Thm. 1].

The in-text citation generator builds these strings when you switch the style to IEEE.

2. Rules that apply to every entry

Author names

Reduce given names to initials placed before the surname: J. K. Author. Do not put a comma before Jr., Sr. or III. Two authors are joined with "and"; three or more are separated by commas with ", and" before the last.

R. Fardel, M. Nagel, F. Nuesch, T. Lippert, and A. Wokaun, “Fabrication of organic light emitting diode pixels by laser-assisted forward transfer,” Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 91, no. 6, Aug. 2007, Art. no. 061103.

How many authors: up to six, then et al.

The Reference Guide reads: "IEEE publications must list names of all authors, up to six names. If there are more than six names listed, use the primary author's name followed by 'et al.'" It adds that for non-IEEE publications, et al. may be used if the additional names are not provided. A side-by-side comparison with other styles is in the et al. rules guide.

M. Ito et al., “Can the application of amorphous oxide TFT be an electrophoretic display?,” J. Non-Cryst. Solids, vol. 354, no. 19, pp. 2777–2782, Feb. 2008.

Dates and month abbreviations

Every reference needs at least a year; if there is no date, put "(n.d.)" where the date would go. Two months for one issue are joined with a slash (Jul./Aug.).

Every example in the current Reference Guide uses the three-letter form (Sep. 23, 2024; Jun. 22–27, 1990), and this site's generator follows it. If your template uses Sept., follow the template.

Titles and abbreviated journal names

• Article, chapter, report and news titles go in double quotation marks, with the following comma inside: “Random patterns,”
• Book, journal and proceedings titles are italic.
• Journal titles are abbreviated. The Reference Guide ends with a word-by-word list: Transactions → Trans., Journal → J., Proceedings → Proc., Letters → Lett., Magazine → Mag., International → Int., Engineering → Eng., Communications → Commun., Computer/Computing → Comput., Technology → Technol., Conference → Conf., Symposium → Symp. One-word titles such as Science and Nature are never abbreviated.

For words not in the list, "-ology" becomes "-ol." and "-graphy" becomes "-gr."; if nothing fits, spell the word out. Conference names are shortened the same way, dropping words like "of the" and "on": "Proceedings of the 1996 Robotics and Automation Conference" becomes "Proc. 1996 Robot. Automat. Conf."

Final periods, DOIs and online elements

• Every reference ends with a period except one that ends with a URL. A reference ending in a DOI still takes the period.
• Write the DOI as "doi: 10.xxxx" in lowercase; in journal entries it follows the date after a comma.
• Online sources end with "[Online]. Available: URL", with no period after the URL.
• Access dates look like "Accessed: Feb. 1, 2009." When an access date or DOI appears together with a URL, the date or DOI comes first, then a period, then the URL.

See the DOI and URL guide for how other styles handle the same elements.

3. Templates and official examples by type

Journal article

Basic format: J. K. Author, “Name of paper,” Abbrev. Title of Periodical, vol. x, no. x, pp. xxx–xxx, Abbrev. Month, year, doi: xxx.

M. M. Chiampi and L. L. Zilberti, “Induction of electric field in human bodies moving near MRI: An efficient BEM computational procedure,” IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng., vol. 58, no. 10, pp. 2787–2793, Oct. 2011, doi: 10.1109/TBME.2011.2158315.

Articles with an article number instead of pages use "Art. no.", which the official examples place after the date. Early access articles state "early access" with the online date and the DOI. Never write "to appear in": use "to be published" once accepted, or "submitted for publication" before acceptance.

Book

B. Klaus and P. Horn, Robot Vision. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 1986.

Chapter in an edited book

L. Stein, “Random patterns,” in Computers and You, J. S. Brake, Ed., New York, NY, USA: Wiley, 1994, pp. 55–70.

Thesis or dissertation

J. O. Williams, “Narrow-band analyzer,” Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Elect. Eng., Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA, USA, 1993.

Use "M.S. thesis" for a master's thesis. Keep "thesis" or "dissertation" as the institution uses it.

Website

J. Smith. “Obama inaugurated as President.” CNN.com. Accessed: Feb. 1, 2009. [Online.] Available: http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/01/21/obama_inaugurated/index.html

The Websites section of the guide prints "[Online.]", while every other section prints "[Online]." Most IEEE templates use "[Online]. Available:".

Report

E. E. Reber, R. L. Michell, and C. J. Carter, “Oxygen absorption in the Earth’s atmosphere,” Aerospace Corp., Los Angeles, CA, USA, Tech. Rep. TR-0200 (4230-46)-3, Nov. 1988.

Newspaper article

J. Markoff, “Software is smart enough for SAT, but still far from intelligent,” Buffalo News, Sep. 21, 2015.

Online articles add "[Online]. Available: URL" at the end.

Conference paper

Papers published in proceedings take "in" and the abbreviated proceedings title; papers that were only presented take "presented at".

G. Veruggio, “The EURON roboethics roadmap,” in Proc. Humanoids ’06: 6th IEEE-RAS Int. Conf. Humanoid Robots, 2006, pp. 612–617, doi: 10.1109/ICHR.2006.321337.

D. Caratelli, M. C. Viganó, G. Toso, and P. Angeletti, “Analytical placement technique for sparse arrays,” presented at the 32nd ESA Antenna Workshop, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, Oct. 5–8, 2010.

Compare fields across styles on the journal article and conference pages.

4. Common mistakes

1. Mixing in author-date citations. IEEE uses numbers only.
2. Sorting the list alphabetically. Order of first citation is the order of the list.
3. Giving one source two numbers. Keep one number and pinpoint pages as [3, p. 7].
4. Writing surname first. IEEE puts initials first.
5. Listing seven or more authors, or cutting to three. Up to six in full; seven or more becomes the first author plus et al.
6. Spelling out journal titles. Write IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng., not the full title.
7. Using ranges like [1]–[4] or [1-4]. The current guide writes them out.
8. Citing an arXiv preprint instead of the published version.

5. Pre-submission checklist

• In-text numbers start at 1 and follow the order of first citation with no gaps
• Every listed reference is cited, and every citation has an entry
• All names are initials-first; seven or more authors are shortened to the first author plus et al.
• Journal and conference titles are consistently abbreviated
• One month format throughout (Sep. or Sept.)
• DOIs included where available, and the final-period rule followed (no period after a URL)
• Title capitalization is consistent; the official examples mostly capitalize only the first word and proper nouns of article titles (see the title case converter)

The reference generator builds a numbered IEEE list; check its output against this list too.

Examples by source type — IEEE

These examples are generated by this site's formatting engine from fictional sample data (not real publications).

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