Is this IEEE citation generator free?

Yes, with no sign-up. Anonymous use covers 30 reference checks a day; a free Phở account raises that to 300 a month.

How do I cite a journal article in IEEE?

Paste its DOI or PubMed ID above and choose IEEE. For example, 10.1038/nature14539 becomes: [1] Y. LeCun, Y. Bengio, and G. Hinton, “Deep learning,” Nature, vol. 521, no. 7553, pp. 436–444, 2015, doi: 10.1038/nature14539.

Why does the tool change details I typed?

Because it looked the paper up and the publisher’s record disagrees. The warnings under each citation list exactly what changed, so you can check.

IEEE Citation Generator | Phở Research Tools

Paste a DOI, PubMed ID or reference and get it in IEEE, built from the real Crossref or PubMed record so the details are right.

IEEE example

The paper Deep learning by LeCun, Bengio and Hinton (Nature, 2015), formatted by this tool from DOI 10.1038/nature14539:

[1] Y. LeCun, Y. Bengio, and G. Hinton, “Deep learning,” Nature, vol. 521, no. 7553, pp. 436–444, 2015, doi: 10.1038/nature14539.

In text: [1]

Who uses IEEE

Electrical engineering, computer science and IEEE conferences and journals.

IEEE reference rules

Number references in order of first citation and put the number in square brackets at the start of each entry.
Write initials before the surname: Y. LeCun, Y. Bengio, and G. Hinton.
Put article titles in quotation marks with only the first word capitalised.
Italicise the journal name (abbreviated where IEEE lists an abbreviation), then vol., no., pp. and the year: vol. 521, no. 7553, pp. 436–444, 2015.
Add the DOI at the end: doi: 10.1038/nature14539.

In-text citations

A number in square brackets, in the order sources are first cited: as shown in [1].

Common mistakes

Reusing a new number for a source cited again. A source keeps its first number.
Putting the year straight after the authors, which is APA, not IEEE.

How this generator avoids wrong references

Every reference is looked up in Crossref, PubMed and OpenAlex before it is formatted. When the database record disagrees with what you pasted (a year off by one, a missing co-author, pages from a different issue) the citation is built from the record and you see what changed. A paper that cannot be found is still formatted, exactly as typed, but marked as unverified, and a retracted paper is flagged in red. Always check your institution's or journal's own guidance: many add small house rules on top of the official style.

Other styles

APA 7 · MLA 9 · Chicago author-date · Harvard · Vancouver · AMA 11