On this page:

• Page numbers
• Month abbreviations
• Journal title abbreviations
• Conference proceeding abbreviations
• Miscellaneous alphabetical abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols
• Common IEEE abbreviations and acronyms

Page Numbers

Always provide page number(s) in the in-text citation when quoting directly (refer to How to use quotes in IEEE section). It is not necessary to provide page number(s): (1) if you are referring to an entire work, (2) if you are paraphrasing or summarising a longer section, or (3) if the work is only one page long. However, if you are paraphrasing, summarising or referring to a specific theory or idea in a text, you may still provide a page number, a page range or the paragraph number along with the in-text citation, as this helps the reader locate the relevant passage, especially if it is in a long or complex text, or if you need to refer to the same source on a number of occasions.  If not already provided along with the in-text citation, the page number, or a range of page numbers may alternatively be provided in the reference list to help identify the relevant place in a source where the information is found. Also keep in mind that pagination may not be present for many electronic sources.

Pagination is cited as p. for a single page or pp. for multiple pages.

Single page         … as demonstrated in [5, p. 17]

Page range          … as seen in [5, pp. 6-12]

Paragraph           … as noted in [4, para. 4.2]

Chapter               … as argued in [6, Ch. 2, pp. 7-13]

Figure                   … as seen in [8, Fig. 33]

Table                   … as shown in [7, Tab. 14]

Equation               … as evident in [6, eq. (8)]

Appendix               … shown in a greater detail in [8, Appendix IV]

Algorithm               … seen in [7, Algorithm 9]

Example              … as shown [13, Example 3]

Section                … as suggested in [5, Sec. 2.3]

For referring to tables, figures, and equations, refer to more examples in Figures, tables and equations from another source.

Month abbreviations

Use the following formats for month abbreviations:

Formats for Month abbreviations is Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., and Dec.

Note that some months are not abbreviated.

Use a forward slash for a bimonthly issue (July/Aug. 2021) or an en dash for a quarterly (Oct.–Dec. 2021).

Journal title abbreviations

When referencing any IEEE journals or magazine titles, then refer to the list of standard journal title abbreviations at ‘Abbreviations for Journal titles​’.

If the publication you are referencing is not published by the IEEE, then spell out the journal's title in full.

Conference proceeding abbreviations

When citing conference proceedings, the common rule is to list the author(s), title, name and location (if provided) of the conference and use any standard abbreviations where necessary.

Use the following abbreviated standard conference terms in their names. In conference names, omit most articles and prepositions such as ‘of the’ and ‘on’, for example, 4th International Conference on Advances in Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics becomes 4th Int. Conf. Advances Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics.

 For further details, refer to the ‘Conference Abbreviations’ section of the IEEE Editorial Style Manual (2023) (p. 63).

Miscellaneous alphabetical abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols

Some standard IEEE words are seldom spelt out, and in a reference, they should be abbreviated. See the ‘Miscellaneous alphabetical abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols’ section of the IEEE Editorial Style Manual (2023) for a full list of these commonly abbreviated words (pp. 40–56).

Common IEEE abbreviations and acronyms

If using common IEEE abbreviations and acronyms in the text of your paper, then refer to the ‘Some Common Acronyms and Abbreviations’ section of the IEEE Editorial Style Manual (2023) (pp. 25–28).