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IEEE Quick Citation Guide

Penn State guide for IEEE references with examples. This is the most common style used in engineering and computer science disciplines.

Citing Data Sets

IEEE follows the FORCE11 Data Citation Principles. These principles are as follows (per https://www.force11.org/datacitationprinciples):

  1. Importance: Data should be considered legitimate, citable products of research. Data citations should be accorded the same importance in the scholarly record as citations of other research objects, such as publications.
  2. Credit and Attribution: Data citations should facilitate giving scholarly credit and normative and legal attribution to all contributors to the data, recognizing that a single style or mechanism of attribution may not be applicable to all data.
  3. Evidence: In scholarly literature, whenever and wherever a claim relies upon data, the corresponding data should be cited.
  4. Unique Identification: A data citation should include a persistent method for identification that is machine actionable, globally unique, and widely used by a community.
  5. Access: Data citations should facilitate access to the data themselves and to such associated metadata, documentation, code, and other materials, as are necessary for both humans and machines to make informed use of the referenced data.
  6. Persistence: Unique identifiers, and metadata describing the data, and its disposition, should persist—even beyond the lifespan of the data they describe.
  7. Specificity and Verifiability: Data citations should facilitate identification of, access to, and verification of the specific data that support a claim. Citations or citation metadata should include information about provenance and fixity sufficient to facilitate verifying that the specific timeslice, version and/or granular portion of data retrieved subsequently is the same as was originally cited.
  8. Interoperability and Flexibility: Data citation methods should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate the variant practices among communities, but should not differ so much that they compromise interoperability of data citation practices across communities.

When providing reference details as much information as available should be provided (italics denote that metadata would benefit from the details, although it is not required for reference listing):

Published mixed data/software package: author(s), name, unique identifier, location/repository, release date, license, description, keywords.

Basic Format:

Author, Date, Year. “Title of Dataset,” distributed by Publisher/Distributor, http://url.com (or if DOI is used, end with a period)

Example:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Aug. 2013, “Treatment Episode Dataset: Discharges (TEDS-D): Concatenated, 2006 to 2009,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Office of Applied Studies. [Online]. Available: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/SAMHDA/studies/30122/version

Citing Software

IEEE follows the FORCE11 Software Citation Principles. These principles are as follows (per https://www.force11.org/wp-content/d7/software-citation-principles.pdf):

  1. Importance: Software should be considered a legitimate and citable product of research. Software citations should be accorded the same importance in the scholarly record as citations of other research products, such as publications and data; they should be included in the metadata of the citing work, for example in the reference list of a journal article, and should not be omitted or separated. Software should be cited on the same basis as any other research product such as a paper or a book, that is, authors should cite the appropriate set of software products just as they cite the appropriate set of papers.
  2. Credit and Attribution: Software citations should facilitate giving scholarly credit and normative and legal attribution to all contributors to the software, recognizing that a single style or mechanism of attribution may not be applicable to all software.
  3. Unique Identification: A software citation should include a method for identification that is machine actionable, globally unique, interoperable, and recognized by at least a community of the corresponding domain experts, and preferably by general public researchers.
  4. Persistence: Unique identifiers and metadata describing the software and its disposition should persist—even beyond the lifespan of the software they describe.
  5. Accessibility: Software citations should facilitate access to the software itself and to its associated metadata, documentation, data, and other materials necessary for both humans and machines to make informed use of the referenced software.
  6. Specificity: Software citations should facilitate identification of, and access to, the specific version of software that was used. Software identification should be as specific as necessary, such as using version numbers, revision numbers, or variants such as platforms.

Basic format:

J. K. Author. Title of Software. Date Repository or Archive. (version or year). Publisher Name. Accessed: Date (when applicable). [Type of Medium]. Global Persistent Identifier. Available: site/path/file

Example:

D. W. Arning et al. Mixed Mode–Mixed Level Circuit Simulator. (2011). Ngspice. Accessed: Jan. 11, 2019. [Online]. Available: http://ngspice.sourceforge.net

Citing Equations

In IEEE, there is no references entry if you have provided your own figure, table, or equation. However, all tables and figures in your paper must be referred to in the main body of the text.

Example:
Biomedical 3-D printed specifications are shown in Fig. 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Other specifications for these specifications are given in Table 1. Equations (1), (2), and (3) were applied for the thermal design of ventilated enclosures used in the equipment casings.

**Figures, tables and equations within a paper are numbered consecutively from the beginning of the paper to the end.**


Equations may be cited either in the introductory material before they appear or in the concluding sentence material after they appear. Do not, however, use one citation at the beginning or end of a section to “cover” the entire section (i.e., “All the equations in this chapter are sourced exclusively from [2]” is incorrect).

Example:

[5] R. H. Byor, “Nanotechnology in water and wastewater treatment,” Ph.D. dissertation, Coll. of Eng. and Sci., Victoria Univ., Melb., Vic., 2016, p. 84.