Formatting Styles in Engineering

Overview

Disciplines use different formatting styles (e.g., MLA, APA, ASA, IEEE, etc.). For instance, graduate students in History might use the Chicago Manual of Style for formatting their written works while graduate students in Electrical Engineering might use IEEE. Psychology graduate students will most likely use APA formatting style while graduate students in the field of Chemistry might use ACS style.

The bottom line is that part of becoming an advanced-level student in your area of study involves becoming comfortable with using the expected formatting styles within your field.

ACM and IEEE are the most commonly used citation styles in Computer & Software Engineering.

Formatting Styles in Engineering

It is important to note that there are subsets of the citation styles mentioned below, exhibiting slight variations.

• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

• American Chemical Society (ACS)

• American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)

• American Institute of Physics (AIP)

• American Medical Association (AMA)

• American Mathematical Society (AMS)

• American Psychological Association (APA)

• American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE)

• Council of Style Editors (CSE)

• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

• National Library of Medicine (NLM)

Norms for citing resources in academic and procuration writing:

• Provide citations for all borrowed and adapted ideas, codes, texts, and illustrations.

• Provide citations for both directly quoted and paraphrased materials.

• Use direct quotations for definitions and statements that cannot be paraphrased.

• Be consistent in using one citation style throughout the paper.

• Avoid citing secondary sources.

• Provide in-text citations, as well as complete citations at the end of the paper.