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How to Cite Sources in Your Research Paper

A guide on how to cite your sources and avoid plagiarism

IEEE Style

The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a professional organization supporting many branches of engineering, computer science, and information technology. In addition to publishing journals, magazines, and conference proceedings, IEEE also makes many standards for a wide variety of industries.

From About IEEE

In-text Citations   

It is not necessary to mention an author's name, pages used, or date of publication in the in-text citation. Instead, refer to the source with a number in a square bracket, e.g. [1], that will then correspond to the full citation in your reference list.

  • Place bracketed citations within the line of text, before any punctuation, with a space before the first bracket.
  • Number your sources as you cite them in the paper. Once you have referred to a source and given it a number, continue to use that number as you cite that source throughout the paper.
  • When citing multiple sources at once, the preferred method is to list each number separately, in its own brackets, using a comma or dash between numbers, as such: [1], [3], [5] or [1] - [5].

The below examples are from Murdoch University's IEEE Style LibGuide.

Examples of in-text citations:

  • "...end of the line for my research [13]."
  • "This theory was first put forward in 1987 [1]."
  • "Scholtz [2] has argued that..."
  • "Several recent studies [3], [4], [15], [16] have suggested that...."
  • "For example, see [7]."

 

Creating a Reference List   

The Reference List appears at the end of your paper and provides the full citations for all the references you have used.  List all references numerically in the order they've been cited within the paper, and include the bracketed number at the beginning of each reference.

  • Title your list as References either centered or aligned left at the top of the page.
  • Create a hanging indent for each reference with the bracketed numbers flush with the left side of the page. The hanging indent highlights the numerical sequence of your references.
  • The author's name is listed as first initial, last name.
    • Example: Adel Al Muhairy would be cited as A. Al Muhairy 
  • The title of an article is listed in quotation marks.
  • The title of a journal or book is listed in italics.

 

Examples of citations for different materials

Material Type

Works Cited

Book in print

J.K. Author, Title of Book. xth ed. City of Publisher, US State or other country: Abbrev. of Publisher, YYYY.
B. Klaus and P. Horn, Robot Vision. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986.

Chapter in book

J. K. Author, “Title of chapter in the book,” in Title of the Published Book, xth ed. City of Publisher, (only U.S. State), Country: Abbrev. of Publisher, year, ch. x, sec. x, pp. xxx–xxx.
L. Stein, “Random patterns,” in Computers and You, J. S. Brake, Ed. New York: Wiley, 1994, pp. 55-70.

eBook

J.K. Author, Title of Book. xth ed. City of Publisher, US State or other country: Abbrev. of Publisher, YYYY. [Online]. Available: URL
L. Bass, P. Clements, and R. Kazman, Software Architecture in Practice, 4th ed. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 2021. [Online] Available: https://norfolkstateu.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1251808773.

Journal (periodical) article

J. K. Author, “Name of paper,” Abbrev. Title of Periodical, vol. x, no. x, pp. xxx-xxx, Abbrev. Month, year.
J. U. Duncombe, "Infrared navigation - Part I: An assessment of feasibility," IEEE Trans. Electron. Devices, vol. ED-11, pp. 34-39, Jan. 1959.

Journal (periodical) article (online)

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, pp. 2787–2793, Oct. 2011, doi: 10.1109/TBME.2011.2158315.

Conference paper (in print, with editors)

J. K. Author, “Title of paper,” in Abbreviated Name of Conf., location of conference is optional, Month and day(s) if provided, year, pp. xxx-xxx.
L. Liu and H. Miao, "A specification based approach to testing polymorphic attributes," in Formal Methods and Software Engineering: Proc 6th Int. Conf. Formal Eng. Meth., ICFEM 2004, Seattle, WA, USA, November 8-12, 2004, J. Davies, W. Schulte, M. Barnett, Eds. Berlin: Springer, 2004. pp. 306-19.

Technical report

J. K. Author, “Title of report,” Abbrev. Name of Co., City of Co., Abbrev. State, Country, Rep. xxx, year.
J. H. Davis and J. R. Cogdell, “Calibration program for the 16-foot antenna,” Elect. Eng. Res. Lab., Univ. Texas, Austin, Tech. Memo. NGL-006-69-3, Nov. 15, 1987.

Patent (online)

Name of the invention, by inventor’s name. (year, month day). Patent Number [Type of medium]. Available: site/path/file
Screwless clip mounted computer drive, by D. Williams. (2005, Apr. 26). U.S. Patent 6,885,550 [Online]. Available: https://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/6,885,550

Standard (online)

Title of Standard, Standard number, date. [Online]. Available: https://www.url.com
Frequency Response and Bias, NERC Reliability Standard BAL-003-0.1b, May 2009. [Online]. Available: https://www.nerc.com/files/BAL-003-0_1b.pdf

Thesis/Dissertation (online)

J. K. Author, “Title of dissertation,” Ph.D. dissertation, Abbrev. Dept., Abbrev. Univ., City of Univ., Abbrev. State, year. [Online] Available: https://www.url.com 
J. O. Williams, “Narrow-band analyzer,” Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Elect. Eng., Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA, 1993.

Examples from the IEEE Citation Reference Guide