How to Cite a Conference Paper
Updated July 2026
A conference paper is cited much like a journal article: author, paper title, the proceedings (the container), pages, and a DOI when present. Conference papers are central to computer science and engineering — in those fields they often outrank journals — so getting them right matters.
Here's the format, plus the difference between a published paper and one that was only presented.
The format
Author → paper title → Proceedings name (the container) → volume/pages → DOI. Use the Conference paper type in Manual Entry, or paste the DOI into the DOI generator if it has one.
Vaswani, A., & Shazeer, N. (2017). Attention is all you need. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 30, 5998-6008. https://papers.nips.cc/paper/7181-attention-is-all-you-need
In-text(Vaswani & Shazeer, 2017)
Vaswani, Ashish, and Noam Shazeer. "Attention is all you need." Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, vol. 30, 2017, pp. 5998-6008, https://papers.nips.cc/paper/7181-attention-is-all-you-need.
In-text(Vaswani and Shazeer 5998)
A. Vaswani and N. Shazeer, "Attention is all you need," Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, vol. 30, pp. 5998-6008, 2017.
In-text[1]
Published in proceedings vs. only presented
Published in proceedings (most CS/engineering papers): cite like an article with the proceedings as the container — this is the case the examples above cover. Only presented (a talk or poster with no published paper): APA cites it as a conference presentation — Author. (Year, Month). Title [Conference session/Paper presentation]. Conference Name, Location. — because there's no published text to point to.
IEEE and computer science
In IEEE, conference papers use in Proc. before the abbreviated conference name and are extremely common — often the primary source type. See the full IEEE Citation Format guide for the numbered-reference rules. Many proceedings (ACL, NeurIPS, IEEE) now assign DOIs; prefer the DOI.
Finding the details
Conference papers live in publisher libraries (IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library) and preprint servers (arXiv) — the published proceedings version is preferred over a preprint when it exists. The first page usually carries the proceedings name, year, and pages. Official guidance: the APA Style Blog and the IEEE Author Center.
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Go Premium — $5/monthFrequently asked questions
- How do I cite a conference paper in APA?
- Like an article: Author. (Year). Paper title. In Proceedings Name (pp. xx–xx). Publisher. https://doi.org/… For a paper that was only presented, cite it as a conference presentation with a [Paper presentation] label.
- What's the difference between a published and a presented conference paper?
- A published paper appears in the proceedings (cite it like an article). A presented-only paper has no published text — cite it as a conference session/presentation with the conference name and location.
- How are conference papers cited in IEEE?
- With 'in Proc.' before the abbreviated conference name, numbered in citation order like all IEEE references. They're a core IEEE source type.
- Should I cite the preprint or the proceedings version?
- Prefer the published proceedings version when it exists, since it's the version of record. Cite the preprint (e.g., arXiv) only if no published version is available.