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

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

V. Marx, “Cell culture: a better brew,” Nature, vol. 496, no. 7444, pp. 253–258, Apr. 2013.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

T. R. Geballe and T. Oka, “Astronomy. A key molecular ion in the universe and in the laboratory,” Science, vol. 312, no. 5780, pp. 1610–1612, Jun. 2006.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Y. Shi, G. W. Tyson, and E. F. DeLong, “Metatranscriptomics reveals unique microbial small RNAs in the ocean’s water column,” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7244, pp. 266–269, May 2009.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

R. W. DePaolo et al., “Co-adjuvant effects of retinoic acid and IL-15 induce inflammatory immunity to dietary antigens,” Nature, vol. 471, no. 7337, pp. 220–224, Mar. 2011.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

B. E. Gup, Banking and Financial Institutions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011.

An edited book

[1]

J. Schatzker, The Rationale of Operative Fracture Care, Third Edition. Third Edition.Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

P. L. Ardoino and F. Ioppolo, “Kinematics and Dynamics of the Vehicle/Seat/Occupant System Regarding Whiplash Injuries,” in Whiplash Injuries: Diagnosis and Treatment, D. C. Alpini, G. Brugnoni, and A. Cesarani, Eds., Milano: Springer, 2014, pp. 27–41.

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 Learning Technologies.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, “Why Violent Psychopaths Don’t ‘Get’ Punishment,” IFLScience, Jan. 30, 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/why-violent-psychopaths-don-t-get-punishment/ (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, “Key Controls NASA Employs to Guide Use and Management of Funded Space Act Agreements Are Generally Sufficient, but Some Could Be Strengthened and Clarified,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, GAO-12-230R, Nov. 2011.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

P. R. Araki, “Golden Years Home Residential Care Facility for the Elderly,” Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2017.

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 Generous Peek Behind the Curtain,” New York Times, p. C4, Oct. 17, 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]–[4].

About the journal

Full journal title	IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies
ISSN (print)	1939-1382
Scope	Computer Science Applications General Engineering Education

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