INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS • 2024 IEEE REFERENCE GUIDE

IEEE Citation Generator — 2024 IEEE Reference Guide

Free, accurate IEEE citations in seconds. Built for engineering, computer science, electronics. AI fills in missing metadata; you copy or export.

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What is IEEE 2024 IEEE Reference Guide?

IEEE is the standard citation style for engineering, computer science, and electronics — required by virtually every IEEE journal, conference paper, and technical report. It uses a numbered system: each source gets a number in square brackets, and the reference list is ordered by appearance, not alphabetically.

When to use IEEE

  • IEEE journals and conference papers (Transactions, ICC, ICASSP, etc.)
  • Most US/EU computer-science and electrical-engineering programs
  • Software engineering, robotics, and signal processing research
  • Technical reports for engineering employers

IEEE quick reference

In-text citation

Bracketed reference number: [1], reused throughout the paper. Multiple sources: [1], [3], [7] or [1]–[3].

As demonstrated in [1], the algorithm achieves O(n log n) complexity.

References (numbered in order of appearance)

JOURNAL ARTICLE

[#] A. Author and B. Author, "Article title," Journal Abbrev., vol. X, no. X, pp. xx–xx, Mon. Year, doi: xx.xxx.

[1] J. D. Smith and A. R. Lee, "The future of artificial intelligence in academic research," Nat. Mach. Intell., vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 234–245, Mar. 2023, doi: 10.1038/s42256-023-00001-x.

BOOK

[#] A. Author, Title of Book, Xth ed. City, State, Country: Publisher, Year.

[2] P. Brown, Citation in the Digital Age. Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press, 2021.

CONFERENCE PAPER

[#] A. Author, "Paper title," in Proc. Conf. Name, City, Country, Year, pp. xx–xx.

[3] J. Lee, "Real-time edge inference," in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Comput. Vis., Paris, France, 2023, pp. 1456–1465.

Key IEEE formatting rules

  1. Use only initials for author first names (J. D. Smith, not Jane D. Smith).
  2. Abbreviate journal names per IEEE standard abbreviations (e.g. Nat. Mach. Intell.).
  3. Numbers in square brackets, references in order of first citation.
  4. For 6+ authors, list the first author then "et al."
  5. Include doi as the last element when available.

IEEE FAQ

Engineering papers reuse the same source many times; numbers keep in-text citations short and the reading flow uninterrupted. The reference list mirrors the order each source first appears.

Yes — IEEE journal titles are abbreviated per the IEEE master journal abbreviation list. bibliott applies these automatically when you select an IEEE-indexed journal.

Yes. Format: [#] Author, "Page title," Site Name, Year. [Online]. Available: URL. Include the access date if the page is likely to change.

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