How to format your references using the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems. 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]

J.-M. Lehn, “Toward self-organization and complex matter,” Science, vol. 295, no. 5564, pp. 2400–2403, Mar. 2002.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

S. A. Frank and M. A. Nowak, “Cell biology: Developmental predisposition to cancer,” Nature, vol. 422, no. 6931, p. 494, Apr. 2003.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

P. Saá, J. Castilla, and C. Soto, “Presymptomatic detection of prions in blood,” Science, vol. 313, no. 5783, pp. 92–94, Jul. 2006.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

H. He et al., “Mineral dust and NOx promote the conversion of SO2 to sulfate in heavy pollution days,” Sci. Rep., vol. 4, p. 4172, Feb. 2014.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

C. Walker and B. Fincham, Work and the Mental Health Crisis in Britain. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2011.

An edited book

[1]

V. A. Goldade, Plastics for Corrosion Inhibition, vol. 82. in Springer Series in Materials Science, vol. 82. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

D. J. O’Shea, “Access to Care,” in Mental Health Practitioner’s Guide to HIV/AIDS, S. Loue, Ed., New York, NY: Springer, 2013, pp. 69–74.

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 Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, “Cuba Has A Lung Cancer Vaccine, And Now It Could Be Coming To The USA,” IFLScience. Accessed: Oct. 30, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/cuba-and-us-lung-cancer-vaccine-collaboration/

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, “Unmanned Vehicles: Assessment of DOD’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Master Plan,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, NSIAD-89-41BR, Dec. 1988.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

I. S. Graves, “Positioning of Fifth Grade Students in Small-Group Settings: Naming Participation in Discussion-Based Mathematics,” Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 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]

A. Nagourney, “‘Everyone Has a Game Plan Until You Punch them in the Mouth,’” New York Times, p. MM20, Feb. 26, 2014.

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 Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems
Abbreviation	IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Syst.
ISSN (print)	2168-2216
Scope	Computer Science Applications Human-Computer Interaction Software Control and Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering