How to format your references using the IEEE Wireless Communications Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for IEEE Wireless Communications Letters. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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]
G. Poste, “Bring on the biomarkers,” Nature, vol. 469, no. 7329, pp. 156–157, Jan. 2011.
A journal article with 2 authors
[1]
A. Diamond and K. Lee, “Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old,” Science, vol. 333, no. 6045, pp. 959–964, Aug. 2011.
A journal article with 3 authors
[1]
A. Grirrane, A. Corma, and H. García, “Gold-catalyzed synthesis of aromatic azo compounds from anilines and nitroaromatics,” Science, vol. 322, no. 5908, pp. 1661–1664, Dec. 2008.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
[1]
S. K. Blight et al., “Direct charging of tRNA(CUA) with pyrrolysine in vitro and in vivo,” Nature, vol. 431, no. 7006, pp. 333–335, Sep. 2004.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
[1]
A. J. Evans, Markets for Managers. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2014.
An edited book
[1]
P. van Oosterom, S. Zlatanova, and E. M. Fendel, Eds., Geo-information for Disaster Management. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2005.
A chapter in an edited book
[1]
A. Dupont-Thibodeau and A. Janvier, “Who Makes It to the NICU? The Association Between Prenatal Decisions and Neonatal Outcomes,” in Ethical Dilemmas for Critically Ill Babies, E. Verhagen and A. Janvier, Eds., in International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2016, pp. 35–42.

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 Wireless Communications Letters.

Blog post
[1]
E. Andrew, “Watch A Baby Chameleon Hatch From Its Egg And Take Its First Steps,” IFLScience, May 13, 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/small-baby-chameleon-hatches-egg-and-takes-its-first-steps/ (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, “Space Transportation System: Past, Present, Future,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, PSAD-77-113, May 1977.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
[1]
D. M. Cappiello, “Minding the gap: Western export controls and soviet technology policy during the 1960s,” Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD, 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]
L. Greenhouse, “Justices Ponder Conditions For Automatic Deportation,” New York Times, p. A22, Oct. 04, 2006.

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 titleIEEE Wireless Communications Letters
ISSN (print)2162-2337
ScopeControl and Systems Engineering
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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