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How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in IEEE Referencing

How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in IEEE Referencing

Did you know you can cite someone else’s thesis or dissertation in your own work? In this post, we’ll explain how this works in IEEE referencing .

Citing a Thesis or Dissertation in IEEE Referencing

In-text citations in IEEE referencing use numbers in square brackets:

Reactive forensics focuses on an incident after it has occurred [1].

These numbers point to sources in the reference list, with sources numbered in the order you cite them (i.e., the first source is always [1], the second is [2], and so on).

For more on citing sources IEEE style, see our blog post on the subject .

Adding a Thesis or Dissertation in an IEEE Reference List

In an IEEE reference list, the basic format for a thesis or dissertation is:

[#] INITIAL (S). Surname, “Title of thesis or dissertation,” Qualification Type, Department Name, University Name, City of University, State/Country, Year.

If possible, you should abbreviate any commonly used terms from this list in the entry (e.g., “University” is usually abbreviated to just “Univ.”).

You can see how this might look in practice below:

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[1] C. P. Clark, “A digital forensic management framework,” MSc Dissertation, Dept. of Comput. Sci., Univ. of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, 2020.

Make sure to include the hanging indent in all references as well.

Theses and Dissertations Accessed Online

If you accessed a thesis or dissertation online, give either a URL or DOI at the end of the reference. The exact format depends on which you give:

You can see examples of both styles below:

[1] C. P. Clark, “A digital forensic management framework,” MSc Dissertation, Dept. of Comput. Sci., Univ. of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, 2020. [Online]. Available: http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1923/

[2] B. S. Bello, “Reverse engineering the behaviour of Twitter bots,” PhD Thesis, School of Informatics, Univ. of Leicester, Leicester, UK, Year, doi: 10.25392/leicester.data.12662456.v1.

Otherwise, though, the reference format is the same as shown above.

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Hopefully, you now feel confident citing a thesis or a dissertation in IEEE style. If you’d like further help checking your references, why not submit a free sample document and select IEEE referencing on upload to see how our experts work?

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cite thesis ieee

IEEE Referencing: Theses & dissertations

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Basic format to reference a Ph.D. dissertation, or a Master or B.S. thesis

 [#]    Author(s) Initial(s). Surname(s), “Title of thesis or dissertation,” Type of thesis (Ph.D. dissertation, or M.S. thesis),  Abbrev . Dept.,  Abbrev .  Univ ., City of  University , (U.S. State or Country if the City is not 'well known'),  Year of Publication. [Type of medium]. Available: site/path/file

Referencing elements to cite:

[1]    K. Jegathala Krishnan, "Implementation of renewable energy to reduce carbon consumption and fuel cell as a back-up power for national broadband network (NBN) in Australia," Ph.D dissertation, College of Eng. and Sc., Victoria Univ., Melbourne, 2013. [Online]. Available: http://vuir.vu.edu.au/25679/

[2]     M. T. Long, "On the statistical correlation between the heave, pitch and roll motion of road transport vehicles,"  M.S. thesis,  College of Eng. and Sc., Victoria Univ., Melbourne , Mar. 2016. [Online]. Available: http://vuir.vu.edu.au/32281/1/LONG% 20Michael %20-%20Thesis.pdf

Basic format to reference a Bachelor thesis

[#]    Author(s) Initial(s). Surname(s), “Title of thesis,” B.S. thesis, Abbrev. Dept., Abbrev. Univ., City of Univ., (U.S. State or Country if the City is not 'well known''), Year of Publication. 

[2]   J. O. Williams, “Acoustic analysis of sound,” B.S. Thesis, Sch. of Eng. and  Appl . Sciences.,  Harvard  Univ ., Cambridge,  MA, 2013.

Referencing a theses: Examples

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Cite a Thesis in IEEE

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Cite A Dissertation in IEEE style

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Use the following template or our IEEE Citation Generator to cite a dissertation. For help with other source types, like books, PDFs, or websites, check out our other guides. To have your reference list or bibliography automatically made for you, try our free citation generator .

Reference list

Place this part in your bibliography or reference list at the end of your assignment.

In-text citation

Place this part right after the quote or reference to the source in your assignment.

Popular IEEE Citation Guides

Other IEEE Citation Guides

IEEE Citation Guide: Theses

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Basic format to reference a Master or Bachelor thesis

Basic format to reference a Ph.D. Dissertation

 [#]    Author(s) Initial(s). Surname(s), “Title of dissertation,” Ph.D. dissertation,  Abbrev . Dept.,  Abbrev .  Univ ., City of  Univ .,  Abbrev . State, Year.

Referencing elements to cite:

[1]    K. Jegathala Krishnan, "Implementation of renewable energy to reduce carbon consumption and fuel cell as a back-up power for national broadband network (NBN) in Australia," Ph.D dissertation, College of Eng. and Sc., Victoria Univ., Melb., 2013.

[#]    Author(s) Initial(s). Surname(s), “Title of thesis,” M.S. or B.S. thesis, Abbrev. Dept., Abbrev. Univ., City of Univ., Abbrev. State, Year.

[2]    M. T. Long, "On the statistical correlation between the heave, pitch and roll motion of road transport vehicles,"  Research Master thesis, College of Eng. and Sc., Victoria Univ., Melb.,  Vic., 2016.

Referencing a theses: Examples

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cite thesis ieee

IEEE Overview

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Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

This page will introduce you to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) style for formatting research papers and citing sources. IEEE – pronounced “I-triple-E” – is a style widely used among all branches of engineering, computer science, and other technological fields.

Though the OWL’s section on IEEE is sufficient for quick reference, if you are writing a lengthy manuscript or dissertation, or if you have detailed questions, you should consult the IEEE Editorial Style Manual, available as a PDF through the organization’s website . Alternately, if you are formatting a paper for submission to a specific organization, publication, or event, refer to the formatting guidelines provided by said organization / publication / event and privilege those guidelines over any found here.

The IEEE section contains the following pages:

General Format

In-Text Citation

Reference List

Tables, Figures, and Equations

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IEEE In-Text Citation | Guidelines & Examples

Published on July 15, 2022 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on October 26, 2022.

An IEEE in-text citation consists of a number in brackets included in your sentence. This number corresponds to an entry on your IEEE reference page providing full information about the source.

Sources are numbered in the order they’re cited, so the first source you cite is [1], the second is [2], and so on. If you cite the same source again, it has the same number each time (don’t use “ ibid. “) and only one entry on the reference page.

Table of contents

Where to place ieee in-text citations, page numbers in in-text citations, citing multiple sources in one place, frequently asked questions about ieee citation.

You need an in-text citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize a source.

In-text citations are usually just placed at a relevant point in the sentence—for example after the author’s name or the quote you’re citing, or just at the end of the sentence. It’s not required to mention the author’s name, but you can.

In-text citations can alternatively be treated as nouns in your sentence. In this case, you essentially use them in place of the author’s name (and therefore don’t mention the author’s name in your sentence). This is a more concise way of using in-text citations.

In both cases, the bracketed number alone indicates a citation. You should never label the number with a word like “reference” or “citation.”

When you’re quoting or paraphrasing a specific part of a source with pages (e.g., an IEEE journal article citation or IEEE book citation ), you should include a page number to point the reader to that passage. Use “p.” for a single page, “pp.” for a range of pages (separating the two numbers with an en dash ). Pay attention to punctuation .

If page numbers are not available in the source you’re citing, there may be other locators you can use to point the reader to the right part. These can also be used in combination with page numbers when necessary (e.g., “[1, Ch. 5, p. 10]”).

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Sometimes, you may need to cite more than one source at the same point in the text—for example, when you’re summarizing several related sources.

To do so, write the source numbers in separate sets of brackets, separated by commas .

If you need to cite a range of three or more sources, you can do so using an en dash (which also appears outside the brackets, not inside them). For example, the sentence below cites sources [8], [9], [10], and [11].

An IEEE in-text citation consists of a number in brackets at the relevant point in the text, which points the reader to the right entry in the numbered IEEE reference page at the end of the research paper . For example, “Smith [1] states that a new protocol will indubitably pay off.”

A location marker such as a page number is also included within the brackets when needed: “Smith [1, p. 13] argues that the poet made facetious comments.”

You should include an IEEE in-text citation whenever you integrate a source into your text by quoting , paraphrasing , or summarizing it. The citation appears in the sentence where the source is integrated, often after the author name or after any quoted text:

Narayana [15, p. 22] describes the encounter as “ copacetic .”

In IEEE citation format , you should list the names of up to six authors in a reference on your IEEE reference page . If the source has seven or more authors, just list the first author’s name followed by “ et al. ” (in italics): “F. Gupta et al. , …”

In the main text, if you mention a source with three or more authors, you should use “et al.”: “Fowler et al. [11] argue that …”

Note that you’re not required to mention author names at all in the text though—just the IEEE in-text citation number is enough, in which case “et al.” isn’t needed: “[11] argues that …”

If you cite the same source more than once in your writing, use the same number for all of the IEEE in-text citations for that source, and only include it on the IEEE reference page once. The source is numbered based on the first time you cite it.

For example, the fourth source you cite in your paper is numbered [4]. If you cite it again later, you still cite it as [4]. You can cite different parts of the source each time by adding page numbers [4, p. 15]. Don’t use “ ibid .”

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2022, October 26). IEEE In-Text Citation | Guidelines & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved February 27, 2023, from https://www.scribbr.com/ieee/ieee-in-text-citation/

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  1. How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in IEEE Referencing

    Citing a Thesis or Dissertation in IEEE Referencing. In-text citations in IEEE referencing use numbers in square brackets: Reactive forensics focuses on an incident after it has occurred [1]. These numbers point to sources in the reference list, with sources numbered in the order you cite them (i.e., the first source is always [1], the second ...

  2. Library Guides: IEEE Referencing: Theses & dissertations

    Referencing elements to cite: [#] Reference number (matching the in-text citation number) Author’s first initial. Author’s second initial, if provided. Author’s last name(s) Title of thesis, in lowercase and double quotation marks; B.S. thesis for Bachelor’s thesis; Abbreviation of the Academic Department, Faculty or College that ...

  3. Citing a Thesis in IEEE

    Creating accurate citations in IEEE has never been easier! Automatically cite a thesis in IEEE by using Citation Machine's free citation generator. Plagiarism and grammar

  4. Guides: How to reference a Dissertation in IEEE style

    Cite A Dissertation in IEEE style. Use the following template or our IEEE Citation Generator to cite a dissertation. For help with other source types, like books, PDFs, or websites, check out our other guides. To have your reference list or bibliography automatically made for you, try our free citation generator.

  5. IEEE Citation Guide: Theses

    Referencing elements to cite: [#] Reference number (matching the in-text citation number) Author’s first initial. Author’s second initial, if provided. Author’s last name (s) Title of thesis, in lowercase and double quotation marks. M.S. thesis for Master’s thesis or B.S. thesis for Bachelor’s thesis.

  6. IEEE Overview

    This page will introduce you to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) style for formatting research papers and citing sources. IEEE – pronounced “I-triple-E” – is a style widely used among all branches of engineering, computer science, and other technological fields.

  7. IEEE In-Text Citation

    An IEEE in-text citation consists of a number in brackets included in your sentence. This number corresponds to an entry on your IEEE reference page providing full information about the source. Sources are numbered in the order they’re cited, so the first source you cite is [1], the second is [2], and so on.