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

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

A. N. Lupas, “Protein Design. What I cannot create, I do not understand,” Science, vol. 346, no. 6216, pp. 1455–1456, Dec. 2014.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

S. Machin and T. Pekkarinen, “Assessment. Global sex differences in test score variability,” Science, vol. 322, no. 5906, pp. 1331–1332, Nov. 2008.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

C. M. Aitken, D. M. Jones, and S. R. Larter, “Anaerobic hydrocarbon biodegradation in deep subsurface oil reservoirs,” Nature, vol. 431, no. 7006, pp. 291–294, Sep. 2004.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

L. Tritten et al., “Metabolic profiling framework for discovery of candidate diagnostic markers of malaria,” Sci. Rep., vol. 3, p. 2769, Sep. 2013.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

F. E. Hossler, Ultrastructure Atlas of Human Tissues. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2014.

An edited book

[1]

M. S. G. Pavão, Ed., Glycans in Diseases and Therapeutics. in Biology of Extracellular Matrix. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

G. V. Korolev and M. M. Mogilevich, “Kinetic Features of Three-Dimensional Free-Radical Copolymerization,” in Three-Dimensional Free-Radical Polymerization: Cross-Linked and Hyper-Branched Polymers, M. M. Mogilevich, Ed., Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2009, pp. 111–128.

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 Software Engineering.

Blog post

[1]

B. Taub, “Zombie Genes That Wake Up After You Die Could Help To Predict Time Of Death,” IFLScience. Accessed: Oct. 30, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/zombie-genes-that-wake-up-after-you-die-could-help-to-predict-time-of-death/

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, “Project SAFECOM: Key Cross-Agency Emergency Communications Effort Requires Stronger Collaboration,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, GAO-04-494, Apr. 2004.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

T. J. RinconGallardo, “The effect of the use of learning journals on the development of metacognition in undergraduate students,” Doctoral dissertation, Capella University, Minneapolis, MN, 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]

G. G. Gustines, “Makeover for Wonder Woman at 69,” New York Times, p. C9, Jun. 30, 2010.

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 Software Engineering
ISSN (print)	0098-5589
Scope	Software