IEEE citation generator

Put one source per line, up to 50 lines. Each line can be a different kind of thing:

• A DOI, like 10.1109/5.771073, doi:10.1109/5.771073 or a doi.org link. The details come from Crossref, the registry publishers file their DOIs with.
• An arXiv ID or link, like https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762. The details come from DataCite, which registers arXiv's DOIs.
• A link to a journal article or a web page. The page is read for the citation details publishers put in it for search engines. If the page lists a DOI, that DOI gets used instead. A page with no article details, like a reference table or a company page, becomes a website citation with today's date as the access date.
• A reference you already have, pasted in whatever format it's in. The authors, title, journal and so on are pulled out of the text you pasted and put back together in IEEE style.

The formatting itself is done by code that follows IEEE's rules, not written by AI. For a pasted reference, AI only reads the line to figure out which part is the author and which part is the title. Any detail it finds has to actually appear in your line, or it's dropped.

If a source doesn't have a year, a volume or an author, the entry shows [missing: year] right where it belongs, so you know to look it up before you submit. The tool never fills a gap with something that looks right.

When a line can't be resolved at all, like a DOI with no record or a page that won't load, you get your original line back with a short reason.

The list is numbered in the order you paste it. IEEE numbers sources in the order you first cite them in your paper, which a list on its own can't know. So paste them in citation order, or renumber once your paper is final.

These are the general patterns. IEEE's reference guide has the full list, and your instructor's or conference's rules win if they differ.

• Journal article: A. B. Author, C. Author, and D. Author, "Title of article," Abbrev. Title of Journal, vol. x, no. x, pp. xxx–xxx, Mon. year, doi: xxx.
• Conference paper: A. B. Author, "Title of paper," in Proc. Name of Conference, City, Country, year, pp. xxx–xxx.
• Book: A. B. Author, Title of Book. City, Country: Publisher, year.
• Website: A. B. Author or Organization, "Title of page." Site name. Accessed: Mon. day, year. [Online]. Available: URL

A few rules that trip people up:

• Authors are written as initials, then surname: "J. Smith", not "Smith, John".
• "and" goes before the last author. With more than six authors, list the first one followed by "et al."
• Article and chapter titles go in quotation marks. Journal, conference and book titles go in italics.
• Months are abbreviated: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept.
• Page ranges use "pp." and an en dash: pp. 112–118.
• If the source has a DOI, include it at the end.

In your paper, each citation is the reference number in square brackets: "as shown in [3]". Cite several at once as "[2], [5]", and a range as "[2]–[5]". The number usually goes before the period, and you can use it as a noun: "[4] measured the same effect at lower temperatures."

Reuse the same number every time you cite the same source. The first new source you cite gets the next number.

A DOI is the most reliable thing you can paste, because it points to one record that the publisher filed. Most journal articles and conference papers have one. It's usually printed on the first page of the PDF, near the abstract or in the header or footer, and it starts with 10. followed by a number and a slash. On a publisher's website it's usually near the title, sometimes as a doi.org link.

Books, standards, datasheets and most websites often don't have one. For those, paste the link or the reference you have.

• Mixing styles, like one entry with the year after the authors (APA) and the next with it at the end (IEEE). Pick one style for the whole list.
• Listing references alphabetically. IEEE lists them in the order you cite them.
• Full first names for some authors and initials for others.
• Missing volume, issue or page numbers on journal articles. These are what let someone find the exact article.
• Website citations with no access date. Web pages change, so IEEE asks for the date you read it.
• A reference in the list that's never cited in the text, or a number in the text with no matching reference.
• Copying a citation from a website's "cite this" button without checking it. Those are often in another style, or have the title in all caps.

Copy all puts the whole list on your clipboard with the italics kept, so it pastes cleanly into Word. Open in editor starts a References document in VibeWrite with the list already in it.