The fastest way to convert any reference to IEEE is to use our free IEEE citation generator — just re-enter the source details and it formats everything correctly. But if you need to manually convert, the examples below show exactly what changes for each style.
Converting APA to IEEE — Journal Article
APA 7 (before)
Chen, M., & Liu, S. (2022). Deep reinforcement learning for robot navigation. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 38(3), 1523–1538. https://doi.org/10.1109/TRO.2022.012345
IEEE (after)
[1] M. Chen and S. Liu, "Deep reinforcement learning for robot navigation," IEEE Trans. Robot., vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 1523–1538, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TRO.2022.012345.
Key changes: author initials move to the front, article title goes in quotes, journal name is abbreviated, year moves to the end, vol./no. notation replaces volume in italics, doi: replaces the full URL.
Converting MLA 8 to IEEE — Journal Article
MLA 8 (before)
Chen, Ming, and Shu Liu. "Deep Reinforcement Learning for Robot Navigation." IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 38, no. 3, 2022, pp. 1523–1538. doi:10.1109/TRO.2022.012345.
IEEE (after)
[1] M. Chen and S. Liu, "Deep reinforcement learning for robot navigation," IEEE Trans. Robot., vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 1523–1538, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TRO.2022.012345.
Key changes: reverse author name order, abbreviate to initials, convert article title to sentence case in quotes, abbreviate journal name, add year at end, add "doi: " prefix.
Converting Harvard to IEEE — Journal Article
Harvard (before)
Chen, M. and Liu, S. (2022) 'Deep reinforcement learning for robot navigation', IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 1523–1538.
IEEE (after)
[1] M. Chen and S. Liu, "Deep reinforcement learning for robot navigation," IEEE Trans. Robot., vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 1523–1538, 2022.
Key changes: move year from after authors to end, change single quotes to double quotes around title, abbreviate journal name, convert to correct IEEE punctuation throughout.
The 5-Step Conversion Checklist
When manually converting any reference to IEEE format, run through these steps:
| Step | What to Change |
|---|
| 1. Authors | Move to front; abbreviate first names to initials (J. Smith, not John Smith) |
| 2. Article title | Put in "double quotes"; use sentence case |
| 3. Journal/book | Italicise; use IEEE journal abbreviation (not full name) |
| 4. Volume/issue | Write as vol. X, no. Y, pp. 000–000 |
| 5. Year and DOI | Year goes near the end, before doi:; change https://doi.org/ to just doi: |
Skip the Manual Conversion — Use Our Free Tool
Our free IEEE citation generator formats everything automatically. Just enter the source details and get a correctly formatted IEEE reference in seconds.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a tool that automatically converts references to IEEE?▼
Yes — the easiest approach is to use our free IEEE citation generator at
/citation-generator/ieee. Re-enter the source information and the tool formats it in IEEE style automatically. This is more reliable than manually converting, since many manual conversions miss the journal abbreviation or punctuation details.
What is the hardest part of converting APA references to IEEE?▼
The most commonly missed step is abbreviating the journal name. APA uses the full journal name; IEEE requires the official abbreviated form. The second most common error is forgetting to move the year — in APA it comes right after the authors, but in IEEE it comes near the end of the entry.
Can I keep the same reference numbers after converting?▼
The reference numbers in an IEEE paper reflect the order sources are first cited in the text — not the order they appear in your existing bibliography. When converting a paper from APA or MLA to IEEE, you'll need to renumber the references in citation-appearance order, not alphabetical order.