The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, is an international organization dedicated to the advancement of the electrical engineering profession. In much the same way that the Modern Language Association governs writing standards in the humanities, the IEEE has a series of guidelines for formatting reports for students in electrical engineering and related disciplines. These guidelines have certain requirements governing the general format of papers, as well as citation style.

Formatting Rules

Unless otherwise specified, use Times Roman or Times New Roman as the font for your report. If neither is available, use the font that most closely resembles Times.

The title should appear in bold 14-point font, and should be centered. It should appear 1 3/8 inches from the top of the page.

Author names should appear below the title in 12-point font that is not bold.

The font size for normal text should be 10-point. First-order headings should be 12-point and bold. Second order headings should be 11-point and bold. If necessary, any third-order headings should appear in bold 10-point font.

On all pages besides the title page, text should begin 1 inch from the top of the page. The bottom margin on all pages should be 1 1/8 inches.

The text alignment should be fully justified.

When printing, all pages should be one-sided so that the backs remain blank.

Number your pages lightly in pencil on the upper right-hand corner, on the back. Do not number the front of the pages.

Bibliographical Citation

The proper format for citation will depend on the type of source you are citing. As a general rule, the titles of complete works and journals should be underlined, while the titles of articles or portions of larger works should appear enclosed in quotation marks. Here are some examples of how to cite common source types.

A Book:

F. Last, Title of Book. City of Publication: Publisher, Year Published.

A Chapter in a Book:

F. Last, "Title of Chapter," in Title of Book. City of Publication: Publisher, Year Published.

A Journal Article:

F. Last, "Title of Article," Title of Journal, vol. #, no. #, pages, month year.

A Journal Article with No Author:

"Title of Article," Title of Journal, vol. #, no. #, pages, month year.

In-Text Citation

According to IEEE format, when you cite within the text you need to refer to the position of the source within your bibliography or reference list, rather than the author's name. An in-text citation also needs to refer to the page you are citing. In-text citations must appear in brackets. If you are referring to page 80 of the first source in your reference, then, your citation should appear as follows:

[1: 80]

In-text citations should always appear at the end of the sentence, but before the period. For example:

Electricity is a common form of energy in American households [1: 80].

IEEE Templates

It may be useful to download a template, which allows you to insert information into an electronic document that is already correctly formatted according to IEEE standards. This can help you save to save time and frustration when compiling your project report. Templates are available for download on the IEEE website's Author Center page.