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IEEE Reference Guide

IEEE Citation Generator

Numbered references in IEEE style, with initials first, abbreviated months and the [Online]. Available: pattern for web sources.

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IEEE · Reference

Your IEEE citation appears here as you type. Start with a URL, DOI or ISBN above, or fill in the title.

Saved sources: 0 in “My paper”

IEEE style, the short version

IEEE style comes from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ IEEE Reference Guide. Electrical engineering, computer science and IT courses use it.

Numbered in order of citation

The first source you cite is [1], the next new source is [2], and so on. A source keeps its number every time you cite it. The reference list is ordered by number, not alphabetically.

Initials before surname

Write J. K. Lee, not Lee, J. K. List up to six authors; for more than six, give the first author followed by et al.

Titles and containers

Article and web page titles go in quotation marks with the comma inside: “Title,”. Journal, book and conference names go in italics, often abbreviated (IEEE Trans. Power Electron.).

Volume, number, pages, date

Journals take vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 45–67, Mar. 2021. Abbreviate months to three letters plus a full stop, except May, June and July.

Online sources

End with Accessed: Mon. DD, YYYY. [Online]. Available: URL. Use doi: 10.xxxx when the source has a DOI.

In-text citations

Put the reference number in square brackets inside the sentence punctuation: as shown in [3]. Cite several at once as [2], [5] or a range [2]–[5]. Add a page with [3, p. 14].

IEEE examples

websiteHow to cite a website →

[1] World Health Organization, “Physical activity,” World Health Organization, Jun. 26, 2024. Accessed: Sep. 20, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity

bookHow to cite a book →

[1] D. Kahneman, Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

journal articleHow to cite a journal article →

[1] J. M. Twenge and W. K. Campbell, “Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study,” Preventive Medicine Reports, vol. 12, pp. 271–283, 2018, doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.10.003.

YouTube videoHow to cite a YouTube video →

[1] TED-Ed, “How to spot a misleading graph,” YouTube, Jul. 6, 2017. Accessed: Sep. 20, 2026. [Online Video]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E91bGT9BjYk

Examples are generated by the same code as the tool above, so what you see is what you get.

Questions students ask

Does IEEE use a hanging indent?
IEEE references are listed with the bracketed number flush left and the text indented after it, so the numbers form a clean column.
Can I reuse a reference number?
Yes. A source keeps the number it was given the first time it was cited, so the same [n] can appear many times in your paper.
Should journal names be abbreviated in IEEE?
The IEEE Reference Guide recommends standard abbreviations (e.g., IEEE Trans. Commun.). Many instructors accept full journal names; follow your course’s template.
How do I cite a conference paper in IEEE?
Author, “Title of paper,” in Proc. Name of Conference, City, Country, Year, pp. xx–xx. Choose “Book chapter” in the generator and put the proceedings title in the book title field.

Other citation styles

7th editionAPAPsychology, education, social sciencesOpen generator →9th editionMLALiterature, languages, humanitiesOpen generator →17th edition, notes & bibliographyChicagoHistory, arts, some humanitiesOpen generator →9th edition, notes & bibliographyTurabianStudent papers using ChicagoOpen generator →Cite Them Right, 12th editionHarvardUK & Australian universities, businessOpen generator →