How to Cite a Book in IEEE
Updated October 2026
Citing a book in IEEE comes down to one template and a handful of rules. Below: the exact numbered style format, a real example produced by our citation engine, and the in-text form — or paste your source into the generator on this page and copy the finished citation.
The IEEE format
A. A. Author, Title of Book, Xrd ed. Publisher, Year.
IEEE (numbered style) formats a book reference as shown above. A real example, generated by our citation engine:
R. C. Martin, Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship. Prentice Hall, 2008.
In-text[1]
Cite a book in IEEE — free
Set up for this page. Paste and go.
An ISBN finds the book's details.
Citation style
IEEE Reference Guide, 2023 revision. Numbered references in square brackets, in citation order.
Finding the pieces
Or skip the hunt: Paste the ISBN (copyright page or back cover) into the generator. It works out what the source is, fills every field from the source's own record, and is already set to IEEE.
- Author(s) — as printed on the title page
- Year — the copyright (©) year of your edition, on the copyright page
- Title and subtitle — from the title page; subtitles follow a colon
- Edition and publisher — also on the copyright page; first editions go unmarked
IEEE's formatting rules at work
- Initials come before surnames: M. Alvarez
- Paper titles in quotation marks with sentence-style capitalization; containers italicized
- Months abbreviated; DOIs written as doi: 10.xxxx, not links
- Up to six authors listed; more become first author et al.
Book-specific pitfalls
- Use the copyright year of your edition, not the latest printing year
- Edited books put the editors in the author slot with an (Ed.)/(Eds.) or 'edited by' marker
- For a chapter in an edited collection, cite the chapter author, then the book and editors
In-text citations in IEEE
IEEE cites in the text with bracketed numbers in order of first appearance: as shown in [1], consolidation requires sleep [2], [5]–[7]. The same number is reused for every later citation of that source, and the reference list is numbered to match — never alphabetized.
Author identity doesn't affect the in-text form — the bracket carries no name. The reference entry starts with whatever author information exists, or the title if none does.
Building the References
Every in-text citation pairs with a full entry on the References page, numbered in order of first citation. Add each citation to your bibliography as you generate it, and the Bibliography Builder assembles and exports the finished page to Word with the title, ordering, and indentation IEEE requires.
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Go Premium — $5/monthFrequently asked questions
- What's the basic IEEE format for a book?
- A. A. Author, Title of Book, Xrd ed. Publisher, Year. — see the worked example above, generated by the same engine that powers the free citation tool.
- Does the ISBN appear in the citation?
- No — ISBNs never appear in any style's citation. But pasting the ISBN into the generator is the fastest way to build it, since the book's registry record fills every field.
- How do I cite a book in IEEE in-text?
- With a bracketed number assigned at first citation: [1]. The reference list is numbered in citation order.
- Can I get this citation in other styles too?
- Yes — every result in the generator renders APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and IEEE simultaneously. Generate once, switch styles with one click.