How to format your references using the IEEE Potentials citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for IEEE Potentials. 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]

R. Lewis, “The hard cell,” Nature, vol. 447, no. 7145, pp. 748–749, Jun. 2007.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

J. W. Lichtman and W. Denk, “The big and the small: challenges of imaging the brain’s circuits,” Science, vol. 334, no. 6056, pp. 618–623, Nov. 2011.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

R. J. Telford, V. Vandvik, and H. J. B. Birks, “Dispersal limitations matter for microbial morphospecies,” Science, vol. 312, no. 5776, p. 1015, May 2006.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

L. Caputi et al., “Missing enzymes in the biosynthesis of the anticancer drug vinblastine in Madagascar periwinkle,” Science, vol. 360, no. 6394, pp. 1235–1239, Jun. 2018.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

J. A. Hobkirk et al., Hypodontia. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2010.

An edited book

[1]

D. L. Olson and D. Wu, Eds., New Frontiers in Enterprise Risk Management. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

M. J. Sirgy and D. Rahtz, “A Measure and Method to Assess Subjective Community Quality of Life,” in Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Cases II, M. J. Sirgy, D. Rahtz, and D. Swain, Eds., in Social Indicators Research Series. , Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2006, pp. 61–73.

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 Potentials.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, “New Fossil Evidence Suggests There Have Been 6 Mass Extinctions, Not 5,” 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, “High-Containment Laboratories: Recent Incidents of Biosafety Lapses,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, GAO-14-785T, Jul. 2014.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

K. K. Kasun, “Economic effectiveness of physician organizational models in a California integrated healthcare system,” Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ, 2010.

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]

J. Barron, “Montauk Gives Bravo’s ‘Summer House’ a Cold Reception,” New York Times, p. A15, Jan. 08, 2017.

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 title	IEEE Potentials
Abbreviation	IEEE Potentials
ISSN (print)	0278-6648
Scope	Strategy and Management Electrical and Electronic Engineering Education