Generate references in IEEE style — the bracketed-number format of the IEEE Editorial Style Manual, used across electrical engineering and computer science — from a DOI, arXiv ID, PubMed ID, PMCID, ISBN, ISSN, ADS bibcode, or paper URL. Initials-first authors, quoted titles, abbreviated journal names, and the vol./no./pp. block, resolved from the publisher’s own record.
IEEE format · DOI, arXiv, PMID & ISBN input · Free, no signup
One identifier per line. We’ll resolve it and return an IEEE-style reference. Nothing is stored.
0 / 2,000 characters
Resolving an identifier confirms the paper exists - it does not confirm the citations in your bibliography point to the right papers. The dominant AI-fabrication pattern is a real, resolvable DOI paired with an invented title. Audit your whole reference list for fabricated citations before you submit.
Each resolved identifier produces one reference in IEEE format. The journal name comes back as its registered abbreviation (Proc. IEEE, not Proceedings of the IEEE), and the numeric block carries the IEEE labels: vol., no., and pp.
Input
Output
Y. Lecun, L. Bottou, Y. Bengio, P. Haffner, "Gradient-based learning applied to document recognition", Proc. IEEE, vol. 86, no. 11, pp. 2278–2324, 1998. doi: 10.1109/5.726791.
Note the IEEE conventions: initials before each surname, the article title in quotation marks, the abbreviated journal title, and the doi: suffix at the end. Author names and title casing come from the publisher’s registered record.
IEEE style is the citation format of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, defined in the IEEE Editorial Style Manual and the accompanying IEEE Reference Guide. It is the required style for IEEE journals, magazines, and conference proceedings, and the default across electrical engineering, computer science, and much of the wider engineering curriculum.
IEEE is a numbered style: references appear in the reference list in the order they are first cited, and in-text citations are bracketed numbers — [1], [2] — that can be read inline, as in “as shown in [1]”. Authors are written initials-first, article titles sit in quotation marks, and journal titles are abbreviated and italicised. For the surname-first numbered styles used in medicine, see the Vancouver Citation Generator and the AMA Citation Generator; to see IEEE next to APA or any other style for the same paper, use the Citation Style Comparator.
Reading the example above left to right, an IEEE journal reference is built from these parts:
| Part | Example | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Authors | Y. Lecun, L. Bottou, Y. Bengio, P. Haffner | Initials before the surname; up to six listed, first author + et al. when seven or more |
| Article title | "Gradient-based learning applied to document recognition" | In quotation marks, as the publisher registered it |
| Journal | Proc. IEEE | Abbreviated journal title, italicised in print |
| Volume/Issue | vol. 86, no. 11 | vol. and no. labels, comma-separated |
| Pages | pp. 2278–2324 | pp. label, en-dash page range |
| Year | 1998 | Year closes the citation block |
| DOI | doi: 10.1109/5.726791 | doi: prefix, closing period |
Books work too: enter an ISBN and the reference comes back as authors, italicised title, publisher, and year. arXiv preprints resolve with their title and year.
IEEEtran class and its IEEEtran bibliography style. Build the .bib file with our DOI to BibTeX converter and let the class handle the reference formatting.This page uses the public API’s builtin IEEE formatter. Send POST /api/format with style: "ieee" and one or more identifiers in text; batch input returns one reference per line. The builtins vancouver, ama, apa, and cse work the same way, and 10,000+ further styles are available by CSL id. See the API documentation.
IEEE style is the reference format of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, defined in the IEEE Editorial Style Manual and the IEEE Reference Guide. It is the house style of IEEE journals and conferences and the default across electrical engineering, computer science, and related fields. References are numbered in the order they are first cited, and in-text citations are bracketed numbers such as [1] that can even be read as nouns — as shown in [1].
Authors come first as initials plus surname, then the article title in quotation marks, the abbreviated journal title, then the vol., no., and pp. labels, the year, and finally the DOI — for example Y. Lecun, L. Bottou, Y. Bengio, P. Haffner, "Gradient-based learning applied to document recognition", Proc. IEEE, vol. 86, no. 11, pp. 2278–2324, 1998. doi: 10.1109/5.726791.
Initials come before the surname — Y. Bengio, not Bengio Y — which is the opposite of Vancouver and AMA. Up to six authors are listed in full; when a paper has seven or more, only the first author is listed, followed by et al. Names are taken from the publisher's registered record.
All three are numbered styles, but they differ in the details. IEEE puts initials before the surname, wraps article titles in quotation marks, labels the numeric block with vol., no., and pp., and uses bracketed in-text numbers like [1]. Vancouver and AMA put surnames first, leave titles unquoted, run the numeric block together as year;volume(issue):pages, and typeset in-text numbers as parentheses or superscript.
Yes. It uses the abbreviated journal title carried on the registry record — Proceedings of the IEEE becomes Proc. IEEE. When a journal has no abbreviation on file, the full journal title is used instead.
Yes. Paste an arXiv ID and the tool resolves it against arXiv, then formats the record in IEEE style. DOIs, PMIDs, PMCIDs, ISBNs, ISSNs, and ADS bibcodes work the same way — enter one identifier per line to build a whole reference list at once.
Compare IEEE output against other styles side by side with the Citation Style Comparator, or export the same references to a reference manager format.
This page is a front end for the public Scholar Sidekick API — the same IEEE formatting runs over plain HTTP, so you can call it from a script, an AI agent, or your reference manager. Light use needs no key at all. A free account issues an ssk_ key that raises your rate limit.