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IEEE Style Guide

Outline of the IEEE citation and reference style

IEEE Standard Abbreviations

Standard abbreviations used in the IEEE Reference list

 Check your references carefully for terms which should be abbreviated.


1. Month abbreviations for patents, journals, websites

Note: Month abbreviations are not needed for books, reports, conferences or theses.

This is the format for months in IEEE style references: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., and Dec.
You will notice that some months appear in full.
Use a slash for bimonthly issues (Aug./Sept. 2000) and a hyphen or en dash for a quarterly (July–Sept. 2000) as recommended by the IEEE Style Guide.


2. Standard IEEE words where they appear in the reference are abbreviated.

To see the list of words to abbreviate, refer to the of IEEE Style Guide.

For example:

B. Sun “A study on how to construct the prediction model of library lending of university library,” in  2011 International Conference on Information Science and Technology (ICIST), 2011, pp. 385-389.

will become:

B. Sun “A study on how to construct the prediction model of library lending of university library,” in  2011 Int. Conf. Inform. Sci. and Technology (ICIST), pp. 385-389

 

3. Abbreviations for Journal titles

  • If referencing a Transactions title: abbreviate title, see the IEEE Style Guide.  Note issue number is not required.
    However if referencing a Transactions title where the article was written prior to 1988, enter the Acronym for that title in the volume details.  For example, vol. AC-26,
  • Abbreviate the month of publication as per Month abbreviations see 1.


4. Abbreviations for conference proceedings

  • Abbreviate IEEE standard words the title of the proceeding see 2 where the words  “Information Science and Technology”  become “Inform. Sci. and Technology”
  • Abbreviate standard conference terms for example: International becomes Int., Conference becomes Conf.
    See page 36. of IEEE Editorial Style Manual.
  • Convert written numbers in the conference proceeding title like Fifth Conference to become 5th  Conf.
    See page 36. of IEEE Editorial Style Manual.

For example:

M. Premaratne, "Challenges in photonic system simulation" in  Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference

will become:

M. Premaratne, "Challenges in photonic system simulation" in  Proc. 6th Int. Conf. Numerical Simulation Optoelectronic Devices. (NUSOD `06), Sept., pp. 109-110.

 

  • When writing the title of published conference proceedings: Remove most articles and prepositions from the conference title for example: “of the”  and “on” 
    So the conference title "Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Numerical Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices" becomes "Proc.  6th Int. Conf. Numerical Simulation Optoelectronic Devices" 
    See  p.37 IEEE Editorial Style Manual
  • Include conference acronyms in the conference title if provided eg (NUSOD)


5. Abbreviations for theses

If the work you are referencing is a thesis:

  • Abbreviate standard IEEE words where they appear in the reference see 2.
  • Abbreviate the name of the Department
  • Abbreviate the name of the University if you know the correct abbreviation
  • Abbreviate the State for place of publication details if the work originated from United States