CMST 247 - Programming I - Salina Campus

What is IEEE style?

The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) citation style is a widely used citation style in the fields of engineering, computer science, and information technology. It is a numerical citation style, meaning that sources are identified in the text by numbers in brackets, and the corresponding full references are listed in numerical order by use at the end of the document.

This means that rather than listing citations in alphabetical order by author's last name as you would in APA 7, citations in the order in which they appear in the document. The first citation to be used will be listed as [1] in-text and it will be the first citation listed in the reference list. All other citations will follow in numerical order of use. See below for in-text and reference list examples.

IEEE employs bracketed numbers for in-text citation. Grammatically, these numbers can function either as a footnote or a noun, so either of the following is correct:

Examples

The city of Florence is populated entirely by owls wearing human masks [1], and thus…

As established in [1], the city of Florence is populated entirely by owls wearing human masks, and thus…

One should always refer to references exclusively by their number within the text --  it’s always just “in [1]”, not “in reference [1]”. In other words, don’t say reference [1], reference [2], etc. Just say the number.