Runs in your browser; auto-fill uses our server. Citations are formatted in your browser. Only if you use Auto-fill is the DOI, ISBN or web address you enter sent to our server, which looks it up with Crossref or Open Library, or reads that page's title, author and date. Nothing is stored.
Generate IEEE References Online
The Tools Kit’s free IEEE Citation Generator formats reference-list entries in IEEE style for the three sources students and engineers cite most: websites, books, and journal articles. Pick a source type and enter the details, or auto-fill them from a DOI, ISBN, or web address. The IEEE reference appears as you type, with author initials before last names, quoted article titles, italic book and journal titles, and the vol., no., and pp. labels IEEE uses. Copy it with its italics, or add it to a numbered reference list.
IEEE style is the standard in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics papers. It cites sources by number. Add each source to the saved list in the order you first cite it, and the list numbers them [1], [2] and so on. References you type are formatted in your browser; only a DOI, ISBN, or web address you auto-fill is sent to our server.
How to Use the IEEE Citation Generator
- 1
Auto-fill or choose a source type
Paste a DOI, ISBN, or web address into the auto-fill box and click Fill in, or select Website / Web Page, Book, or Journal Article and fill in the form yourself.
- 2
Enter the authors
Type each author as First Last, separated by commas, for example "Maria Garcia, Wei Chen". The tool converts them to IEEE initials-first form. After auto-fill, check the names.
- 3
Fill in the source details
Add the title plus whatever else you have: site name and URL, publisher and city, or journal name, volume, issue and pages, and the year. Only the title is required to see a reference, but fill in every field you have, because empty fields can leave stray punctuation in the output.
- 4
Copy the reference or add it to your list
The reference updates as you type. Click Add to list in the order you first cite each source, and the list numbers them [1], [2] and so on. Copy all pastes the numbered list with its italics.
No account is needed and there is no limit on how many references you create. Auto-fill uses the details the source publishes, so check every field, especially author names and capitalization. If you are pulling details out of a downloaded paper, the PDF to Text converter makes it easy to copy the exact title, journal name, and page range.
IEEE Citation Format With Examples
These are the exact patterns the generator produces for each source type, with real-world style examples.
- Journal article: A. Author, “Title of article,” Journal Name, vol. X, no. X, pp. XX-XX, Year.
M. Garcia, W. Chen, and R. Mehta, “Low-power sensor networks for smart grids,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 1120-1131, 2024. - Book: A. Author, Title of Book. City: Publisher, Year.
S. Haykin, Neural Networks and Learning Machines. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2009. - Website: A. Author, “Title of page,” Site Name. Year. [Online]. Available: URL
“Getting started with Raspberry Pi,” Raspberry Pi Foundation. 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/
IEEE sets journal names and book titles in italics. The generator shows them in italics and keeps them when you copy into Word or Google Docs. A web page with no named author, like the example above, simply starts with the title.
IEEE In-Text Citations and Numbered Reference Lists
Unlike author-date styles, IEEE does not put names in your sentences. Each source gets a number in square brackets the first time you cite it, for example “earlier work [1] showed…”, and keeps that number every time it is cited again. The reference list at the end of the paper is ordered by those numbers, not alphabetically, so the first source you cite is [1] in the list.
The generator shows [1] under each reference as a reminder of the in-text form, but it does not track where you cite each source. Click Add to list in the order sources first appear in your paper, and the saved list numbers them for you. Copy all pastes the numbered list with italics and a hanging indent, and you can download it as .txt or BibTeX (.bib). If a reviewer or course asks for a different style, the multi-style Citation Generator creates the same source in ten other styles, including Harvard, Vancouver, and BibTeX.
How IEEE Formats Author Names
IEEE writes authors as initials followed by the last name, the reverse of the “Last, First” order used by APA citations and the MLA format. Type each author as First Last, separated by commas, and the tool converts “Maria Garcia, Wei Chen and Rahul Mehta” into “M. Garcia, W. Chen, and R. Mehta”. Two authors are joined with “and”, without a comma.
The tool keeps only the first initial and lists every author you enter. If your journal wants middle initials (“J. Q. Smith”) or shortens long author lists to “et al.”, make that edit in the copied text.
Common uses
- Building the reference list for an engineering or computer science lab report
- Citing journal articles in an IEEE conference or journal manuscript
- Referencing datasheets, documentation pages, and online standards as web sources
- Formatting textbook references for a capstone project or thesis that follows IEEE style
- Converting an existing reference to IEEE when a course or publisher switches styles
Before submitting, run your draft through the grammar checker and confirm you are within the abstract or page limit using the word counter. For humanities courses, the Chicago citation generator covers the same three source types. All of these are collected in the writing and citation tools hub.
IEEE citation terms explained
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Reference list | The numbered list of sources at the end of an IEEE paper, ordered by first citation rather than alphabetically; the saved list in this tool numbers entries in the order you add them |
| In-text citation | The bracketed number, such as [3], placed in your sentence to point to entry 3 in the reference list |
| vol. | The volume of a journal, usually one per publication year |
| no. | The issue number within a volume |
| pp. | The page range of an article, such as pp. 1120-1131 |
| [Online]. Available: | The phrase IEEE places before the URL of a web source |
| n.d. | Short for "no date"; the tool uses it for a book or journal entry when the year is left blank |
Frequently Asked Questions
An IEEE journal reference lists author initials and last names, the article title in quotation marks, the journal name, then vol., no., pp. and the year: M. Garcia, W. Chen, and R. Mehta, "Low-power sensor networks for smart grids," IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 1120-1131, 2024. Choose Journal Article, or paste the DOI into the auto-fill box, and the tool builds this format with the journal name in italics.
Give the author if there is one, the page title in quotation marks, the site name, the year, and then "[Online]. Available:" followed by the URL. The generator builds that line from the Website / Web Page fields, which auto-fill can fill from the web address. It does not add the access date to IEEE output, so add "Accessed:" and the date by hand if required.
An IEEE book reference runs: initials and last name, book title, publisher city, publisher, and year, as in S. Haykin, Neural Networks and Learning Machines. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2009. IEEE italicizes the book title, and so does the tool. Copy Citation keeps the italics when you paste into Word or Google Docs.
Yes, in the saved list. Click Add to list for each source and the list numbers them [1], [2] and so on in the order you add them. It does not track where you cite them, so add sources in the order they first appear in your text.
IEEE uses bracketed numbers inside the sentence, for example "as shown in [4]". The number matches the source's position in the reference list and is reused every time you cite that source. The tool shows [1] as a reminder of the form; use the number the source has in your list.
Type each name as First Last and separate authors with commas, semicolons, "and" or "&". The tool turns "Maria Garcia" into "M. Garcia". It uses only the first initial, so if you want a middle initial such as "J. Q. Smith", edit the copied reference.
Two authors are joined with "and" (A. Lovelace and C. Babbage). Three or more are separated by commas with ", and" before the last name. The tool lists every author you enter and does not shorten long lists to "et al."
For a book or journal article, the entry uses "n.d." (no date) in place of the year. For a website, the year is simply left out of the reference.
There is no dedicated conference paper or standard source type. The tool covers websites, books, and journal articles. For a standard published online, the Website / Web Page type produces a usable "[Online]. Available:" reference; a conference paper needs the "in Proc." form added by hand.
No. IEEE uses numbered references ordered by citation and initials before last names, while APA and MLA use author names in the text and an alphabetical reference list. Use the APA or MLA generators on this site if your course requires those styles.
References you type, including unpublished work, are formatted in your browser and are not sent to a server. If you use auto-fill, the DOI, ISBN or web address goes to our server, which asks Crossref or Open Library or reads the page; nothing is stored. Your saved list stays in this browser.
Reviewed by Raja Jahangir · Last reviewed: October 7, 2026
How do you cite a journal article in IEEE format?
An IEEE journal citation runs: [1] A. Author, "Title of paper," Journal Name, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 11–19, Jan. 2026. References are numbered in the order they first appear, and in-text citations use that bracketed number rather than the author's name.
How do you cite a conference paper in IEEE?
An IEEE conference citation runs: [1] A. Author, "Title of paper," in Proc. Conference Name, City, Country, 2026, pp. 100–105. The key difference from a journal citation is the "in Proc." prefix and the inclusion of the conference city and country.