ieee-transactions

IEEE Journals and Conferences

Verify first (mandatory)

Each IEEE periodical and conference sets its own page limits, overlength charges, review model (single- vs double-blind) and submission system. Check:

• The journal's "Information for Authors" page (from its IEEE Xplore home) or the conference call for papers.
• IEEE Author Center: https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/ (journals) and the conference author kit.
• The official template via the IEEE Template Selector (https://template-selector.ieee.org/).

Record: page limit (initial vs final), reference counting, overlength charges, anonymization rules, and whether a graphical abstract or multimedia is allowed.

LaTeX setup (IEEEtran)

\documentclass[journal]{IEEEtran}        % Transactions/Journals
% \documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}   % conferences
% \documentclass[journal,compsoc]{IEEEtran} % Computer Society journals
\usepackage{cite}          % compresses [1]-[4]
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref}   % check venue rules; some conferences disallow bookmarks in final PDFs

• Don't change margins, fonts, spacing or column widths. Reviewers and IEEE production reject tweaked templates.
• Bibliography: \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran} + \bibliography{refs} (IEEEtran.bst ships with the class).
• Title and authors: \title{}, \author{} with \thanks{} for affiliations and funding (journal mode), and \IEEEauthorblockN/A in conference mode.
• \begin{IEEEkeywords} ... \end{IEEEkeywords} for Index Terms after the abstract.
• Figures: figure for one column, figure* for two. Tables use \caption above the table.
• Journal final versions include \begin{IEEEbiography} author bios (with photos for many Transactions).

Content conventions

• Abstract: one paragraph, no citations/equations/abbreviations. IEEE Author Center recommends about 150-250 words (verify per journal). Include the key result.
• Index Terms: from the IEEE Taxonomy/thesaurus where possible, alphabetical.
• References: numbered in order of citation, in square brackets [1], cited as nouns sparingly ("as shown in [3]"). Include DOIs where available.
• Equations are numbered in parentheses and referenced as "(1)". Define every symbol.
• Units in SI. Use "Fig. 1" in text and captions per IEEE style.
• The first page footnote in journals includes received/revised dates (filled by IEEE) and funding.

Submission workflow

1. Check page count and overlength charges. Supplementary material goes separately if allowed.
2. Conferences: validate the final PDF with IEEE PDF eXpress (fonts embedded, Xplore-compatible) using the conference ID, then upload to the conference system.
3. Journals: submit via ScholarOne Manuscripts or the IEEE Author Portal for that periodical. Complete the IEEE Copyright Form (eCF) or open-access license at acceptance.
4. Double-blind venues: remove author info, anonymize self-citations ("[5]" in third person), and strip PDF metadata (\hypersetup{pdfauthor={}}).
5. IEEE Access and open-access journals charge APCs. Hybrid journals offer an OA option.

Common rejections at check-in

Modified template or margins; over page limit; missing index terms; non-embedded fonts; figures unreadable in grayscale (for print); references not in IEEE style; plagiarism/similarity score too high, including self-overlap with your own conference version (journals expect substantial extension).

Related skills

venue-templates, bibtex-hygiene, citation-verification, scientific-visualization, arxiv-submission, rebuttal-and-response-to-reviewers.