Free IEEE Citation Generator and Format Guide

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) style uses numbered citations in square brackets [1] that correspond to a numbered reference list. It is the standard for engineering, computer science, and technical publications.

Citations are numbered in the order they appear in the text. Use [1] for the first citation, [2] for the second, etc. The same number is used each time you cite the same source.

IEEE is standard in electrical engineering, computer science, information technology, telecommunications, signal processing, and other technical fields. It is required for IEEE conference papers, IEEE Transactions journal submissions, and most technical theses in engineering departments.

For websites, include author, title in quotes, website name, URL, and accessed date. Example: [1] J. Smith, "Article Title," Website.com. https://example.com (accessed Jan. 15, 2024).

For datasheets: [1] Texas Instruments, "LM358 dual operational amplifier," LM358 datasheet, Mar. 2013. For standards: [2] IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic, IEEE Std 754-2019, 2019. Include the document number, organisation, and revision date so reviewers can locate the exact part or revision cited.

Use the format: [1] A. Author, "Paper title," in Proc. of Conference Name (abbreviated), City, State/Country, Year, pp. xx-yy. Example: [1] J. Smith, "Deep learning for vision," in Proc. IEEE Conf. Computer Vision Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Seattle, WA, USA, 2024, pp. 1234-1245.

IEEE uses bracketed numbered references [1] and is the engineering/EE/CS standard. ACM Reference Format also uses numbered citations by default, but allows author-year for some venues, and includes the DOI as a URL on a separate line. If you are submitting to an ACM venue (CHI, SIGGRAPH, etc.), use the ACM template — otherwise IEEE is the safer default for technical papers.

Yes. The current IEEE editorial style appends the DOI as a clickable link at the end of each entry: doi: 10.1109/example.2024.0001. Older IEEE templates wrote DOIs without the prefix — both are accepted by most IEEE journals as of 2024, but the doi: prefix is preferred for new submissions.

Yes — generating IEEE citations on this page is free, with no signup. The free tier includes a monthly citation allowance; Pro removes the cap and adds bulk export to BibTeX, RIS, and Word.