There are several posts on this site. But here is your very example with use of the align environment:
% arara: pdflatex
\documentclass{IEEEtran}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
\begin{align}
\textit{thisIsATerm} &= a +b\notag\\
&\qquad +c+d\\
&= x\cdot y +\sum_{1}^{3}z\notag\\
&\qquad -\sinh x
\end{align}
\end{document}

If you need general information about where to split, please see my answer here!
If you want to get exactly the picture you are showing, you should replace the \qquad by \quad. I don't like that so much, but it will indent exactly (? at least I believe that...) the space of an =-sign.
\begin{align}
\textit{thisIsATerm} &= a +b\notag\\
&\quad +c+d\\
&= x\cdot y +\sum_{1}^{3}z\notag\\
&\quad -\sinh x
\end{align}

If you want to use the (shown first) indented approach but would like to align other operators as well, you can go the \phantom-way.
\begin{align}
\textit{thisIsATerm} &= a +b\notag\\
&\hphantom{{}= a} +c+d\\
&= x\cdot y +\sum_{1}^{3}z\notag\\
&\hphantom{{}= x\cdot y} -\sinh x
\end{align}

I set the number on the right always aligned to the second row (as you are showing in your image). If you would like to get this centred, you will have to wrap two lines in a split-environment and get rid of the \notags.