How-to

How to Do IEEE Citations in LaTeX

The fix

For IEEE style in LaTeX, the simplest route is BibTeX with \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran} and \cite{key}, which prints bracketed numbers like [1]. With biblatex, use \usepackage[style=ieee]{biblatex}. The IEEEtran document class already expects this setup.

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Example

% BibTeX route (IEEEtran.bst):
\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
Text \cite{shannon1948}.   % -> [1]
\bibliography{references}

% biblatex route:
% \usepackage[style=ieee,backend=biber]{biblatex}

Frequently asked questions

Which bibliography style is IEEE?

Use IEEEtran with BibTeX: \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}. It produces the numbered [1] style IEEE requires. With biblatex, use style=ieee.

How do I cite several references as [1]-[3]?

Cite them together: \cite{a,b,c}. IEEEtran compresses consecutive numbers into a range like [1]-[3] automatically.

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