ieee research paper proposal format

Structure Your Paper

Learn how to structure your paper for publication. IEEE has put together some tips and best practices for what should be included in your conference paper.

Your paper title should be specific, concise, and descriptive. Avoid using unnecessary words such as “new” or “novel”. Include keywords that will help a reader find your paper.

Provide a concise summary of the research conducted. Include the conclusions reached and the potential implications of those conclusions. Your abstract should also:

• consist of a single paragraph up to 250 words, with correct grammar and unambiguous terminology;
• be self-contained with no abbreviations, footnotes, references, or mathematical equations;
• highlight what is unique in your work;
• include 3-5 keywords or phrases that describe the research, with any abbreviations clearly defined,  to help readers find your paper.

First Footnote

Funding footnote.

If the research reported in your paper was supported by a funding source, include the funder’s name and grant information in a footnote on the first page of the paper.

Human and animal research statements

For papers reporting on research involving human subjects or animals, complete and include one of the following human/animal research statements in a footnote on the first page of the paper:

• Papers That Are Reporting on Human/Animal Research and Have Review Board Approval:   This work involved human subjects or animals in its research. Approval of all ethical and experimental procedures and protocols was granted by (Name of Review Board or Committee) (if provided under Application No. xx, and performed in line with the (Name of Specific Declaration (if applicable/provided)).
• Papers That Are Reporting on Human/Animal Research and Are Exempt From Review Board Approval: This work involved human subjects or animals in its research. The author(s) confirm(s) that all human/animal subject research procedures and protocols are exempt from review board approval.

Refer to the IEEE’s policy on Research on Human and Animal Subjects .

Introduction

Help the reader understand why your research is important and what it is contributing to the field.

• Start by giving the reader a brief overview of the current state of research in your subject area.
• Progress to more detailed information on the specific topic of your research.
• End with a description of the exact question or hypothesis that your paper will address.

Also state your motivation for doing your research and what it will contribute to the field.

Formulate your research question. It should include:

• a detailed description of the question;
• the methods you used to address the question;
• the definitions of any relevant terminology;
• any equations that contributed to your work.

The methods section should be described in enough detail for someone to replicate your work.

Results and Discussion

Show the results that you achieved in your work and offer an interpretation of those results. Acknowledge any limitations of your work and avoid exaggerating the importance of the results.

Summarize your key findings. Include important conclusions that can be drawn and further implications for the field. Discuss benefits or shortcomings of your work and suggest future areas for research.

Acknowledgments

You can recognize individuals who provided assistance with your work, but who do not meet the definition of authorship . The acknowledgments section is optional.

Provide citation information for all the previous publications referred to in your paper. Cite only those references that directly support your work.

Authoring Tools and Templates

Creating your conference paper for IEEE should be seamless. Save time and effort with authoring tools and templates that will help you write, prepare, and share your research better.

Use   IEEE conference templates   in Word or LaTeX to easily format your paper for publication. Write collaboratively with your co-authors in   Overleaf , an authoring tool for LaTeX and rich text documents. Overleaf is preloaded with IEEE templates for your convenience. Overleaf and LaTeX resources are available online for both beginners and advanced users. Choose from a variety of quick guides, tutorials, webinars, and detailed documentation based upon your individual needs and level of expertise.

Get your paper ready for publication with IEEE Author Tools. Find the right conference   for your paper. Validate your   references  and   LaTeX   files. Claim your unique   ORCID identifier   to get full credit for your work.

Share your data and code with other researchers through the data repository   IEEE DataPort ™ and the executable code platform   Code Ocean .

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

IEEE General Format

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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Contained in this page are some basic guidelines for formatting a paper in IEEE style. The best way to format your paper may vary slightly depending on which field you’re working in and the specifics of where your paper is being submitted, so remember to double-check against any submission guidelines provided by the organization, instructor, or supervisor to whom you are submitting your paper.

• The paper title should be centered at the top of the first page, in 24-point type.
• Author’s name (or authors’ names)
• Author affiliation(s)
• City & country location(s)
• E-mail address(es).
• The body of the paper should be in 10-point type, and formatted to appear in two columns. The columns on the last page should be the same length; this may require adding a column break after you have finished the body of your paper.
• All papers must begin with an abstract and index terms.

Note to Practitioners

Nomenclature.

• Acknowledgements
• Papers may be divided into sections and subsections; IEEE has guidelines for primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary section headings.
• IEEE papers begin with a drop cap two lines deep, followed by the next 8-12 characters (or 1-2 words, whichever is appropriate) in all caps.
• Figures, tables, and equations should each be numbered consecutively, but separately. They should also be centered in the column in which they appear.

An IEEE abstract should be written as a single paragraph roughly 200 words long, give or take 50 words. (Abstracts shorter than 150 words or longer than 250 risk incurring the irritation of the editors.) It should be self-contained, and should concisely & accurately summarise the contents of your paper. It is encouraged to try and include three or four keywords or key phrases to help interested readers to find your article.

Abstracts should be simply formatted, without anything that requires specialized typesetting or consultation of material outside the abstract. Abbreviations, footnotes, references, tables, graphs, charts, figures, and displayed mathematical equations are specifically forbidden. The goal of an abstract is to be a simple, accessible, and self-contained microcosm of your paper.

Here is an example of how you might format an abstract:

The abstract should be followed by index terms. These should be in a paragraph separate from the abstract. Index terms are similar to keywords and are provided by the paper’s author to help journals, editors, and readers categorize, archive, or locate your paper. IEEE maintains a standardized list of index terms to make this process easier and its categories more consistent. The most recent version of the  IEEE Taxonomy  can be found on the IEEE website. Here is a link to the 2019 version of the taxonomy .

Index terms should be given in alphabetical order; the first should be capitalized, and the rest lowercase unless they contain acronyms or other components that inherently require capitalization.

Here is an example of how you might format a set of index terms:

Section Headings

Dividing one’s paper into clearly labelled sections increases readability, and is encouraged. Typical sections include Introduction and Conclusion sections as well as sections within the body of the paper that relate to aspects of its content.

Primary headings are enumerated with Roman numerals followed by a period, set in small caps, and centered above the text.

Secondary headings are enumerated with capital letters followed by a period,   set in italics and title case, left-aligned, unindented, and separated from the text by a line break.

Tertiary headings are enumerated by Arabic numerals followed by a close-parenthesis, set in italics and title case, left-aligned, indented one em, and separated from the text by a colon. There is no line break between the heading and the text. 

Quaternary headings are enumerated by lowercase letters followed by a close-parenthesis, set in italics and sentence case, left-aligned, indented two ems, and separated from the text by a colon. There is also no line break here.

Here is an example of what the various headings should look like in your document:

I. Primary Heading

                  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Fermentum leo vel orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse.

A. Secondary Heading

                  Odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas volutpat blandit aliquam. Amet consectetur adipiscing elit pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et.

         1) Tertiary Heading:  Libero justo laoreet sit amet cursus sit. Enim nec dui nunc mattis enim ut tellus elementum sagittis.

                  a) Quaternary heading:  Nibh ipsum consequat nisl vel pretium lectus. Malesuada proin libero nunc consequat interdum varius.

Special Headings

In addition to the standard headings above, there are a few special cases. References and Acknowledgments are formatted like primary headings, but are not enumerated.

Appendix headings should be arranged under a separate system, though formatted like primary headings; if there is only one appendix, it requires neither a number nor a name, but is simply labelled Appendix. If there are multiple appendices, they should be numbered and titled, though one should note that the numbering system for appendix headings is wholly separate from that of section headings; they start at one, regardless of how many sections were present within the paper. Appendices may be enumerated either with Roman numerals or with capital letters, according to the preference of the author, as long as it is done with consistency. Unlike section headings, the number will come after the word “Appendix”: Appendix A rather than A. Appendix. They should have titles, set on the line below them but still formatted like a section heading.

Here is an example of how you might format the beginning of an appendix:

Regarding the Vermiform Process

                  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. At augue eget arcu dictum varius.

If at any point you wish to refer back to a previous section within the text of your paper – e.g. “As mentioned in [section]…” – you should capitalize the word “Section” and separate subsections from the primary section numeral with a hyphen. E.g., “Section IV,” “Section II-A,” “Section III-B4c,” etc.

The Note to Practitioners, if you choose to include one, goes below your abstract. The aim of the Note is to, without repeating any of the information from your abstract, explain the practical applications of your work without use of jargon. This is so that engineers working on practical problems, who may not have significant background in your particular field, will be able to understand the application of your work to theirs.

A Note to Practitioners can be more than one paragraph, but is otherwise formatted like the abstract.

Here is an example of what a Note to Practitioners might look like:

                  Note to Practitioners – Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Enim sit amet venenatis urna cursus eget nunc scelerisque. Feugiat vivamus at augue eget arcu dictum. Lorem donec massa sapien faucibus et molestie. Pellentesque nec nam aliquam sem.

                  Vel quam elementum pulvinar etiam non quam lacus suspendisse. Velit scelerisque in dictum non consectetur a. Phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies tristique nulla. Gravida neque convallis a cras semper auctor. At elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo.

                  Cursus eget nunc scelerisque viverra mauris in. Fames ac turpis egestas integer eget. Viverra mauris in aliquam sem fringilla ut morbi.

If your paper uses a number of different symbols, variables, and so forth, you may want to avoid having to define them within the body of your paper by providing a list of definitions up front; this is called the Nomenclature section. If you choose to include a Nomenclature section, it goes immediately before the Introduction section.

The heading for the Nomenclature section is formatted like a primary heading with no numeral, and the section itself is formatted generally the same as body text, including the italicization of variables. The main difference is the way in which the text must be aligned: the terms being defined are flush against the left margin, and the definitions are aligned one em-space after the longest defined term.

If you are working in a word processor, the easiest way to do this is often to insert a table into your document with invisible borders below the Nomenclature heading. See the images below for an example. Note that the images have been zoomed in to enlarge the text for clarity purposes.

Example of a nomenclature section

Example of a nomenclature section with the borders of the table used to format the section set to visible

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Preparing Your Special Issue/Section Proposal

Special issues cover a key topic of interest to electrical engineers and computer scientists and serve as a guide to the state of the art in the particular area. They typically include 10-15 papers. 

Special Sections explore important topics that may not yet require a full issue’s coverage. They typically include 3-5 papers. 

Prospective Guest Editors are required to submit a detailed proposal for our Editorial Board’s consideration.  Please use the  special issue proposal template (Word, 19KB)  to prepare your proposal and the  special section proposal template (Word, 24KB)  to prepare your special section proposal. 

Completed proposals can be sent to the  Proceedings  of the IEEE  Editorial Office , or directly to the  Managing Editor .

The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor will preview the proposals and potentially suggest initial improvements to ensure that the proposals meet the required expectations. Proposals will be submitted to the Proceedings Editorial Board for review. The Editorial Board takes three to four weeks to review the proposals. The Editor-in-Chief then makes the final decisions.

Points to Remember

• Guest Editors are encouraged to enlist the help of co-Guest Editors to distribute the workload. Co-Guest Editors should be leading experts in the area, preferably from geographically diverse locations. For special sections there should be no more than 2 guest editors in total.
• Proceedings of the IEEE Special Issues/Sections should reflect the state of the art in the particular areas and should include contributions from leading experts around the world. Depending on the topic, industry representation can be important.
• Papers should be reviews, tutorials, or surveys written for specialists within the core research area as well as non-specialists who are interested in learning about the state-of-the-art in this field. They should remain citable by the core research groups while remaining accessible to a broad audience.
• Papers must offer new perspectives and insights and should be applications-oriented.
• Individual papers undergo a rigorous peer-review process via our peer review system ( ScholarOne Manuscripts ) after the proposal is accepted and must meet the quality criteria for the journal before publication. The Editor-in-Chief maintains the highest authority of the publication on all editorial matters.

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• Knowledge Base
• IEEE Reference Page | Format & Examples

IEEE Reference Page | Example & Format

Published on July 19, 2022 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on June 1, 2023.

The IEEE reference page (sometimes called the IEEE bibliography) appears at the end of your paper. It’s where you list full information about all the sources you’ve cited, numbered to match your IEEE in-text citations , so that the reader can find and consult them.

Follow these guidelines to format the reference page:

• Write the heading “References” in bold at the top, either left-aligned or centered.
• Write the reference numbers down the left side, in square brackets (not to be confused with parentheses ).
• Indent the references themselves consistently to separate them from the numbers.
• Single-space the references, with a normal paragraph break in between them.

Table of contents

Example of an ieee reference page, example references for common source types, numbering and ordering the reference list, general formatting guidelines for ieee references, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about ieee citation.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

IEEE references follow specific formatting guidelines in order to provide full information on the source in a clear and consistent way. This generally consists of the author’s name, the title of the source, the publication date, information about where it was published, and sometimes a DOI .

Examples are shown below for common source types . Make sure to pay attention to punctuation (e.g., commas , periods and quotation marks ).

IEEE book citation

IEEE journal article citation

IEEE website citation

In IEEE citation format, your references are numbered to match the in-text citations that point the reader towards them. In-text citations and references are both numbered in the order they were cited in the text .

If you cite the same source repeatedly in your paper, it’s numbered based on the first time it was cited and appears only once on the reference page. To cite different parts of a source, use a different page number (or other locator) in each in-text citation. Don’t create duplicate references.

As you edit your paper, always double-check that the numbering of in-text citations still matches that on the reference page, or your citations will point to the wrong references. Make sure to add citations for all source types, whether they’re primary or secondary sources , or even tertiary sources .

While many details of your IEEE references vary based on the type of source you’re citing, there are some general rules about:

• Presenting author names
• Formatting source titles
• Abbreviating certain terms

Give the initials of the author’s first name and (if listed) middle name, and write their last name in full. Each initial is followed by a period and a space.

For a source with one to six authors, list all of them, separated by commas and (before the final one) the word “and.” You also use a comma before “and.” Write the names in the order they’re listed in the source. If there are seven or more, list the first author followed by “ et al. ” (italicized).

Titles are formatted in two basic ways in IEEE references, depending on whether it’s the title of something that stands on its own, or the title of something that’s part of a larger publication:

• Titles of standalone sources and containers (e.g., books, journals) are written in italics, with title case capitalization (capitalizing the first letter of all important words).
• Titles of sources contained in a larger publication (e.g., chapters in a book, journal articles) are enclosed in quotation marks, with only the first word (and any proper nouns ) capitalized.

Abbreviations

To keep references concise, IEEE recommends abbreviating the names of publishers, journals, universities, companies, conferences, and months (as well as using initials for authors’ names, as described above).

Months are all abbreviated to the first three letters, followed by a period (e.g., “Jun.”; but no period after May, since it’s already three letters long).

This table lists abbreviations for some other common words. A more comprehensive table can be accessed through the button below. Note that these words are only abbreviated in the contexts mentioned above, not in source titles.

View full table

If you want to know more about ChatGPT , AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• ChatGPT vs human editor
• ChatGPT citations
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Using ChatGPT for your studies
• What is ChatGPT?

 Working with sources

• Paraphrasing
• Critical thinking
• Boolean operators
• Synthesizing sources

 Plagiarism

• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Consequences of plagiarism
• Common knowledge

The IEEE reference page consists of a list of references numbered in the order they were cited in the text. The title “References” appears in bold at the top, either left-aligned or centered.

The numbers appear in square brackets on the left-hand side of the page. The reference entries are indented consistently to separate them from the numbers. Entries are single-spaced, with a normal paragraph break between them.

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 .”

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Caulfield, J. (2023, June 01). IEEE Reference Page | Example & Format. Scribbr. Retrieved September 3, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/ieee/ieee-reference-page/

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