IEEE Referencing: Quotes & Paraphrasing

How to use quotes in IEEE

Direct quotes are used to support an argument showing the exact words and phrases of an author according to the original source. Enclose quotes in double quotation marks and provide the citation in square brackets after the quotation or after the author’s name along with the page number(s).

Examples of a short direct quote:

Baez et al. have noted that "full 3D stacking can potentially offer additional advantages for memory and processor applications" [7, p. 14].

In fact, Wilde at al. [3, p. 21] suggest that energy storage is achieved "by means of static charge rather than of an electro-chemical process inherent to the battery".

If you need to leave some unnecessary words out of the quotation, use a set of dots (…), called an ellipsis, indicating a break in quotes.

As seen in [5, p. 14], “the proposed circuit has improved signal attenuation … and has been experiencing less performance degradation due to resistor variation”.

An example of a longer direct quote:

If you use longer quotations (of three lines and more), use a block quotation by setting the block of quoted text as a paragraph. Use smaller font size for block quotations, and also indent them from both margins, for example:

As Abad notes:

It is also desirable to minimize the parasitic capacitance of electronic packages because it is another source of signal delay. Consequently, a very low relative dielectric constant insulating material should be used whenever possible, since the relative dielectric constant is a measure of a material's total polarizability and determines its charge storage capacity with respect to a vacuum [7, p. 63]. 

Provide the in-text citation in square brackets after the quotation, along with the page number(s) of the source where the quoted words or phrases are taken from.

Reference list

In the Reference list, provide page numbers if you are referencing a section or chapter of the source:

[7]     W. Brown, "Electrical Design Considerations," in Advanced Electronic Packaging: With Emphasis on Multichip Modules: Wiley-IEEE Press, 2013, pp. 51-74.

Paraphrasing in IEEE

When you are paraphrasing, that is, expressing an idea or a fact found in a source using different words, a reference citing the source should always be given. Provide your citation number directly after the reference - this is not necessarily at the end of the sentence, unless it is where the reference occurs:

In contrast to ‘data partitioning’ structures [13], the ‘space partitioning’ structures show better performance for dynamic memory resident data [14]–[15].

Page numbers are generally not given for paraphrases, but can still be given along with the citation number within the main text of the paper if you are referring to a specific theory or idea in a source, or alternatively in the reference list. This enables the reader to locate the specific information you are referring to. Longer sections of an article, book or another source, do not require a page number. For example:

These media have been used in many communication system applications, such as linearising high power amplifiers [8, p. 18], phased array antennas [9, pp. 15–17], and phase shifters [10].