How to format your references using the IEEE Communications Magazine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for IEEE Communications Magazine. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author
[1]
H. Salo, “Astronomy. Twisted disks,” Science, vol. 332, no. 6030, pp. 672–673, May 2011.
A journal article with 2 authors
[1]
T. Mitchell-Olds and J. Schmitt, “Genetic mechanisms and evolutionary significance of natural variation in Arabidopsis,” Nature, vol. 441, no. 7096, pp. 947–952, Jun. 2006.
A journal article with 3 authors
[1]
I. A. Chen, R. W. Roberts, and J. W. Szostak, “The emergence of competition between model protocells,” Science, vol. 305, no. 5689, pp. 1474–1476, Sep. 2004.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
[1]
C.-Y. Wen et al., “Formation of compositionally abrupt axial heterojunctions in silicon-germanium nanowires,” Science, vol. 326, no. 5957, pp. 1247–1250, Nov. 2009.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book
[1]
D. S. Rimai, Patent Engineering. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2016.
An edited book
[1]
G. R. Popelka, B. C. J. Moore, R. R. Fay, and A. N. Popper, Eds., Hearing Aids, vol. 56. in Springer Handbook of Auditory Research, vol. 56. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016.
A chapter in an edited book
[1]
D. Bampzelis and T. Karacostas, “Radar Derived Storm Characteristics Over Central Greece,” in Advances in Meteorology, Climatology and Atmospheric Physics, C. G. Helmis and P. T. Nastos, Eds., in Springer Atmospheric Sciences. , Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2013, pp. 27–33.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for IEEE Communications Magazine.

Blog post
[1]
J. O`Callaghan, “Goodbye, Rosetta: World Bids Farewell As Spacecraft Ends Mission With Comet Impact,” IFLScience.

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report
[1]
Government Accountability Office, “The Manager, the Government, and the Accounting Profession,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 091184, Sep. 1968.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
[1]
D. Narita, “Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) and climate change mitigation: An analysis of economic optimality and policy making,” Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, New York, NY, 2008.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article
[1]
G. Vecsey, “Welcoming Back N.B.A. With Open Yawns,” New York Times, p. B16, Nov. 29, 2011.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1], [2].
This sentence cites four references [1], [2], [3], [4].

About the journal

Full journal titleIEEE Communications Magazine
AbbreviationIEEE Commun. Mag.
ISSN (print)0163-6804
ScopeComputer Networks and Communications
Computer Science Applications
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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