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:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX 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]

J. A. Kovacs, “Biochemistry. How iron activates O2,” Science, vol. 299, no. 5609, pp. 1024–1025, Feb. 2003.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

A. Zénon and R. J. Krauzlis, “Attention deficits without cortical neuronal deficits,” Nature, vol. 489, no. 7416, pp. 434–437, Sep. 2012.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

C.-H. Tseng, J. L. Gobell, and G. Sperling, “Long-lasting sensitization to a given colour after visual search,” Nature, vol. 428, no. 6983, pp. 657–660, Apr. 2004.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

F. Van Petegem, K. A. Clark, F. C. Chatelain, and D. L. Minor Jr, “Structure of a complex between a voltage-gated calcium channel beta-subunit and an alpha-subunit domain,” Nature, vol. 429, no. 6992, pp. 671–675, Jun. 2004.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

D. T. Larose, Data Mining Methods and Models. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005.

An edited book

[1]

J. Lam, K. C. Li, S. K. S. Cheung, and F. L. Wang, Eds., Knowledge Sharing through Technology: 8th International Conference on Information and Communication Technology in Teaching and Learning, ICT 2013, Hong Kong, China, July 10-11, 2013, Revised Selected Papers, vol. 407. in Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol. 407. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

R. Bridson, “Revisiting Vorticity: Pushing Fluid Solvers to the Next Level,” in Mathematical Progress in Expressive Image Synthesis III: Selected and Extended Results from the Symposium MEIS2015, Y. Dobashi and H. Ochiai, Eds., in Mathematics for Industry. Singapore: Springer, 2016, pp. 41–44.

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]

D. Andrew, “Watch As A Hippo Rescues A Drowning Zebra,” IFLScience, Aug. 27, 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/extraordinary-hippo-rescues-drowning-zebra/ (accessed Oct. 30, 2018).

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, “Improving the Collection of Debts Owed the Government,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 117802, Mar. 1982.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

A. L. Hensley, “Gender, personality, and coping: Unraveling gender in military post -deployment physical and mental wellness,” Doctoral dissertation, Capella University, Minneapolis, MN, 2009.

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]

M. Pilon, “For Equestrian Event, Course Bursts From an Imagination,” New York Times, p. D8, Jul. 30, 2012.

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]–[4].

About the journal

Full journal title	IEEE Communications Magazine
Abbreviation	IEEE Commun. Mag.
ISSN (print)	0163-6804
Scope	Computer Networks and Communications Computer Science Applications Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Research and Writing Guides