How to format your references using the IEEE Transactions on Communications citation style

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

S. A. Tooze, “Cell biology. GGAs tie up the loose ends,” Science, vol. 292, no. 5522, pp. 1663–1665, Jun. 2001.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

D. H. Erwin and D. C. Krakauer, “Evolution. Insights into innovation,” Science, vol. 304, no. 5674, pp. 1117–1119, May 2004.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

B. W. Brunton, M. M. Botvinick, and C. D. Brody, “Rats and humans can optimally accumulate evidence for decision-making,” Science, vol. 340, no. 6128, pp. 95–98, Apr. 2013.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

A. R. Barik, M. Bapna, D. A. Drabold, and K. V. Adarsh, “Ultrafast light induced unusually broad transient absorption in the sub-bandgap region of GeSe2 thin film,” Sci. Rep., vol. 4, p. 3686, Jan. 2014.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

E. Danson, Drawing the Line. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2016.

An edited book

[1]

G. M. Jacobs, Simple, Powerful Strategies for Student Centered Learning. in SpringerBriefs in Education. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

A. Destexhe and M. Rudolph-Lilith, “Integrative Properties in the Presence of Noise,” in Neuronal Noise, M. Rudolph-Lilith, Ed., Boston, MA: Springer US, 2012, pp. 111–183.

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 Transactions on Communications.

Blog post

[1]

D. Andrew, “Neonicotinoids Linked To Wild Bee And Butterfly Declines In Europe And US,” 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, “Changing World of the Computer and Implications of ADP for GAO,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 092322, Feb. 1979.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

J. Prosky, “Meisner and the problem of character,” Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2012.

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]

B. Kenigsberg, “A Good American,” New York Times, p. C7, Feb. 02, 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 Transactions on Communications
ISSN (print)	0090-6778
Scope	Electrical and Electronic Engineering