This article will be your guide to the format. While reading it, you will learn how to cite in IEEE. Additionally, we will tell you what the IEEE style is, share the basic requirements given in this manual of style, provide some overall writing recommendations, and share handy IEEE citation examples.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What Is IEEE?

The IEEE reference format is a commonly accepted style for writing, formatting, and citing research papers. The format was created based on the Chicago Manual of Style and is widely used by students and researchers in Computer Science and relevant technical fields. This comprehensive guide will come in handy for every student or young professional involved in this field. Thus, if that’s your major, we recommend reading this article instead of studying the entire edition of the latest IEEE manual of style, to save lots of time and to grasp the idea of how to create an IEEE paper with ease.

‍

What does IEEE stand for, you may wonder? The letters IEEE stand for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. It is a professional association of electric engineering and associated disciplines. It was formed in 1963 on the basis of two American establishments – the Institute of Radio Engineers and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.

Being the largest association of technical professionals in the world, the IEEE sets the bar for aspiring technical specialists and researchers. To outline the standards for writing and organizing academic works in relevant fields, the IEEE has established its own writing style manual.

The IEEE style consists of 2 critical elements:

• In-text citations (direct & indirect)
• References (Works Cited in MLA format)

In-text citations are short quotations taken from primary or secondary sources. In IEEE in text citation, they are numbered in square brackets. Every number next to their corresponding citation identifies the complete citation listed in the References section in numerical order (commonly referred to as the Works Cited list or bibliography page in other formats).

‍

Why Citing is Important for Your Academic Performance?

Collecting sources for an academic paper and then citing them can be rather time-consuming and tedious. Many students find the citation process too complicated and often overlook its importance.

So, why is citing sources vital for your academic performance? First of all, citing external sources helps students show their professors that they have invested time and effort into researching the given topic. Also, this process has a few other purposes:

1. Providing Credibility
The main reasons for using information from external sources are either to compliment the contents of your work with relevant data, or to provide a different look/opinion on the issue stated. In both cases, it means adding credibility to your own paper, making it look more trustworthy and complete, and establishing yourself as an authoritative author.

2. Ensuring Academic Integrity and Uniqueness
By not giving credit to other people’s works when relevant, you lose academic integrity and misrepresent your own academic achievements. At the same time, you risk the uniqueness of your paper; as simply using external resources without citing them is most often considered plagiarism. Both issues can lead to a low grade, failure of the task, or even expulsion.

Besides, IEEE has a special definition of plagiarism. The organization believes it is the usage of another’s ideas, opinions, research findings, or words, without acknowledging the original writer and source. Plagiarism is a severe breach of professional conduct. It involves serious ethical & legal outcomes in most situations. Imagine someone would use your words one day once you’ve become a famous writer or scientist. How would you feel?

3. Acknowledging the Works of Other Specialists
The main purpose of citing sources is to give credit to the works of other people, wherever it is pertinent. When creating each citation, you acknowledge the hard work, time, and effort another person has put into his or her research.

4. Contributing to Further Research
Finally, the last reason that proves the importance of citations is the fact that by giving accurate credit to others’ works, you are contributing to your own further research and also helping other researchers locate the relevant sources you’ve cited with ease.

All in all, it is worth noting that formatting weighs around 10-15% of the final grade you get for a paper. Given this and other reasons, it is fair to say that students can’t count on the highest grade without having their sources properly cited.

Basic Page Format

The standard IEEE template contains the following sections in the same order:

1. Title Page (including the article’s title, byline, membership, and first footnote)
2. Abstract – should be one paragraph long (preferably between 150 to 250 words)
3. Index Terms
4. Nomenclature (optional)
5. Introduction
6. Body of Article
7. Conclusion
8. Appendix(es)
9. Acknowledgment(s)
10. References
11. Photos and Biographies