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IEEE is the standard in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics, and it works unlike the author-date styles. Nothing is alphabetized: sources are numbered in the order you first cite them, and that number is the citation for the rest of the paper.
The first source you cite becomes [1], the second [2], and so on. Every later mention of the first source is [1] again, no matter where it appears. The reference list is then printed in that numeric order — not alphabetically — which is why inserting a new citation into an early paragraph renumbers everything after it.
The bracketed number is a grammatical object, not a footnote marker. Write "as shown in [1]" or "the method in [3] fails", and put the bracket before the sentence's final punctuation. For several sources at once use [1], [3], [5]; for a run use [1]–[4].
An IEEE journal reference gives the author's initials before the surname, the article title in quotation marks and sentence case, the journal name in italics, then volume, issue, page range, and year. A DOI goes at the end.
Example
[1] J. A. Smith, “The role of machine learning in academic writing,” Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 215–232, 2023, doi: 10.1234/jet.2023.0041.
In-text: [1]
A book reference italicizes the title, gives the edition, and ends with publisher and year. A conference paper is the closest thing IEEE has to a special case: the paper title stays in quotation marks and the proceedings title is italicized, prefixed with "in" — for example, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Comput. Vis., 2023, pp. 100–108.
Example
[1] J. A. Smith, The craft of research, 4th ed. University of Chicago Press, 2020.
In-text: [1]
Two IEEE conventions catch people out. Initials always come before the surname, which is the reverse of APA and MLA. And for a paper with more than six authors, IEEE lists the first author followed by et al. rather than naming everyone.
IEEE also abbreviates journal and conference titles — Journal of Educational Technology becomes J. Educ. Technol. Abbreviations are set by IEEE's own reference lists, so if you are submitting to an IEEE venue, check the title against their abbreviation list rather than inventing one.
IEEE is mechanically strict, which is good news: the errors are predictable and each one takes seconds to fix.
Numbered. Sources are numbered in the order they are first cited and appear as bracketed numbers like [1] in the text, with the reference list printed in that same numeric order.
Inside the sentence, before the final period: "the results converge in under ten steps [4]." Treat the bracket as part of the sentence, and you can also use it as a noun — "the algorithm in [4]".
Up to six authors are named in full. With more than six, list the first author followed by et al.
For IEEE submissions, yes — IEEE maintains standard abbreviations such as J. Educ. Technol. For coursework, spelled-out journal names are usually accepted, but keep whichever you choose consistent across the whole reference list.
Yes. IEEE references, BibTeX, and RIS export are free with no sign-up required.