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]

M. Kono, “Geophysics. Ships’ logs and archeomagnetism,” Science, vol. 312, no. 5775, pp. 865–866, May 2006.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

M. T. Nishimura and J. L. Dangl, “Plant science. Paired plant immune receptors,” Science, vol. 344, no. 6181, pp. 267–268, Apr. 2014.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

R. Romero, S. K. Dey, and S. J. Fisher, “Preterm labor: one syndrome, many causes,” Science, vol. 345, no. 6198, pp. 760–765, Aug. 2014.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

U. Wiechert, A. N. Halliday, D. C. Lee, G. A. Snyder, L. A. Taylor, and D. Rumble, “Oxygen isotopes and the moon-forming giant impact,” Science, vol. 294, no. 5541, pp. 345–348, Oct. 2001.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

U. Eicker, Solar Technologies for Buildings. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2005.

An edited book

[1]

L. Cao, Y. Zeng, A. L. Symeonidis, V. I. Gorodetsky, P. S. Yu, and M. P. Singh, Eds., Agents and Data Mining Interaction: 8th International Workshop, ADMI 2012, Valencia, Spain, June 4-5, 2012, Revised Selected Papers, vol. 7607. in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 7607. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

D. Zhai, Y. Wu, J. Lu, and F. Yan, “A Fuzzy Negotiation Model with Genetic Algorithms,” in Integration and Innovation Orient to E-Society Volume 1: Seventh IFIP International Conference on e-Business, e-Services, and e-Society (I3E2007), October 10–12, Wuhan, China, W. Wang, Y. Li, Z. Duan, L. Yan, H. Li, and X. Yang, Eds., in IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2008, pp. 35–43.

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, “Scientists Capture Stunning ‘Mini Supernova’ Explosion,” IFLScience, May 06, 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/space/scientists-capture-stunning-mini-supernova-explosion/ (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, “Efforts To Comply With P.L. 94-142 and Selected Youth Services Administration Management Functions,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 130172, Jun. 1986.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

K. F. Watson, “Persons and how we trace them: What Johnston got wrong,” Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2014.

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. Johnson, “Quantum Leaps,” New York Times, p. BR1, Aug. 05, 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 Potentials
Abbreviation	IEEE Potentials
ISSN (print)	0278-6648
Scope	Strategy and Management Electrical and Electronic Engineering Education

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