How IEEE numbering works
IEEE is a numeric style. In the text you write a number in square brackets, [1], placed inside the sentence before the punctuation. The number points to the reference list, which is ordered by first citation, not alphabetically. A source keeps its number every time you cite it again. Several sources go in separate brackets or a range: [2], [5] or [3]–[6].
Before you copy a numbered list, check that it follows the order in which sources first appear in your paper.
IEEE reference examples
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.
In-text citation: [1]
B. Klaus and P. Horn, Robot Vision. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 1986.
In-text citation: [1]
L. Stein, “Random patterns,” in Computers and You, J. S. Brake, Ed., New York, NY, USA: Wiley, 1994, pp. 55–70.
In-text citation: [1]
IEEE puts initials before surnames, places article titles in quotation marks, abbreviates journal titles (the abbreviation comes from the registry data when available, so check it), and adds the DOI as "doi:" at the end.
IEEE and LaTeX
Many engineering papers are written in LaTeX with BibTeX. Export your list as .bib and use it with the IEEEtran bibliography style in your LaTeX project, or copy the formatted references for a Word template. The bibliography generator explains each export format.
What to check in an IEEE reference
- Journal abbreviation: IEEE uses standard abbreviations such as "IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng."; registry data may give the full title.
- Conference papers: include the conference name, location and date where your guide asks for them.
- Up to six authors: IEEE lists all authors for six or fewer; for more, the first author and "et al." is used.
- Online sources: IEEE adds "Accessed:" and "[Online]. Available:" before the URL.
Official IEEE guide and version used
The generator uses the official ieee.csl style, titled "IEEE Reference Guide version 11.29.2023". Examples were recreated from the IEEE Reference Guide, checked October 25, 2026. Rephrasa is not affiliated with IEEE. For writing your own text, the academic paraphrasing tool keeps technical terms and numbers unchanged.
Conference papers and standards
Engineering papers cite conference proceedings and standards often. A conference paper with a DOI usually comes back from Crossref with the proceedings title; check that it reads "in Proc." followed by the conference name, and add the location and dates if your template expects them. Standards such as an IEEE standard document can be entered through the manual form as a report with the standards body as author.
Writing with IEEE numbers
Treat the number as a reference, not a noun: write "as shown in [3]" rather than "in reference [3]". You may name an author before the number when it helps: "Klaus and Horn [2] describe..." Place the bracket inside the sentence before the full stop.
Theses and newspapers in IEEE
J. O. Williams, “Narrow-band analyzer,” Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Elect. Eng., Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA, USA, 1993.
In-text citation: [1]