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]

R. Triendl, “Breaking down biological borders,” Nature, vol. 418, no. 6899, p. 7, Aug. 2002.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

A. G. Sergeev and J. F. Hartwig, “Selective, nickel-catalyzed hydrogenolysis of aryl ethers,” Science, vol. 332, no. 6028, pp. 439–443, Apr. 2011.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Y. Wang, S. Ran, and G. Yang, “Single molecular investigation of DNA looping and aggregation by restriction endonuclease BspMI,” Sci. Rep., vol. 4, p. 5897, Jul. 2014.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

F. N. Hamada et al., “An internal thermal sensor controlling temperature preference in Drosophila,” Nature, vol. 454, no. 7201, pp. 217–220, Jul. 2008.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

D. Lindahl, Multi-Family Millions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2008.

An edited book

[1]

K. Doris, Wide-Bandwidth High-Dynamic Range D/A Converters, vol. 871. in The International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, vol. 871. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Z. Cheng, “New Chaos Produced from Synchronization of Chaotic Neural Networks,” in Advances in Neural Networks - ISNN 2008: 5th International Symposium on Neural Networks, ISNN 2008, Beijing, China, September 24-28, 2008, Proceedings, Part I, F. Sun, J. Zhang, Y. Tan, J. Cao, and W. Yu, Eds., in Lecture Notes in Computer Science. , Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2008, pp. 40–46.

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]

T. Hale, “NASA Finds Long-Lost Spacecraft After Nearly Two Years Of No Contact,” IFLScience. Accessed: Oct. 30, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-finds-longlost-spacecraft-after-nearly-two-years-of-no-contact/

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, “Pipeline Safety: Better Data and Guidance Could Improve Operators’ Responses to Incidents,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, GAO-13-284T, Jan. 2013.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

B. S. Domec, “Development, Characterization, and Resultant Properties of a Carbon, Boron, and Chromium Ternary Diffusion System,” Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA, 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]

S. Dynarski, “A Trillion-Dollar Student Debt, With Mounting Risks,” New York Times, p. BU4, May 06, 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 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