BibTeX and bibliography styles

References and citations are best handled in a consistent way by using BibTeX. In this method, you supply all the relevant information about references in a ``.bib file'' without regard to ordering or style. (See the sample file myrefs.bib, below.) Then you let BibTeX format all citations and reference entries according to the chosen bibliographic style, and you don't have to sweat all the font and punctuation and ordering details yourself.

The reference/bibliography section usually appears at the end of an publication. In your LaTeX file, these two commands insert the reference section:

	\bibliographystyle{xxx}
	\bibliography{yyy}

The ``xxx'' is a style name -- plain or abbrv or siam or alpha or any of dozens of other available styles, many listed below.

The ``yyy'' is the name of the bib file (yyy.bib) containing the reference database.
For example, the command \bibliography{myrefs} would call on file ``myrefs.bib''.

Below find the following:

• a sample LaTeX file which uses the \bibliography and \bibliographystyle commands
• the bib file (myrefs.bib) used by the LaTeX file,
• the sequence of commands for compiling the bibliography and the LaTeX document
• a list of some possible bibliography styles
• other BibTeX reference/FAQ information; lists of entry types and fields

Sample LaTeX source code file

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\author{John Doe} \title{Sample Document}
\begin{document}
\maketitle

\section{Introduction}

According to the handbook of van Leunen \cite{vanleunen},
this paragraph---and certainly this
section---should be longer than one sentence.

\section{More references}

Here we see if the reference \cite{Narendra_1990}
to the Narendra article comes out OK, in particular,
with volume, number \& pages.

The necessary information for those who would use BibTeX
is available in the 1988 document of Prof.\ Patashnik \cite{btxdoc}.
Interested readers who can read French may also
want to read Poussin's proof\cite{primes}, though
it has nothing at all to do with BibTeX.

\section{Conclusion}

This is the concluding paragraph.  Here I cite another of
Oren Patashnik's books\cite{btxhak} and, again,
van Leunen's and Poussin's \cite{vanleunen,primes}.

\bibliographystyle{plain}	% (uses file "plain.bst")
\bibliography{myrefs}		% expects file "myrefs.bib"
\end{document}

Sample BibTeX database file

You can find .bib entries for major publications with a simple Google search. Links to some large online .bib databases (found with Google, 2004, keywords "book article incollection bib physics", etc.) include physics (1), physics (2), math (1), math (2), math (3), programming (1), programming (2), TeX/Publishing.

But it isn't hard to enter the database information yourself. Use any text editor; choose your own keyword for a publication, then list its information fields key="info", one line at a time in any order. Note this sample database file ``myrefs.bib'':

@string{jgr = "J.~Geophys.~Res."}

@MISC{primes,
   author = "Charles Louis Xavier Joseph de la Vall{\'e}e Poussin",
   note = "A strong form of the prime number theorem, 19th century",
   year = 1879
   }

@INBOOK{chicago,
   title = "The Chicago Manual of Style",
   publisher = "University of Chicago Press",
   edition = "Thirteenth",
   year = 1982,
   pages = "400--401",
   key = "Chicago"
   }

@BOOK{texbook,
   author = "Donald E. Knuth",
   title= "The {{\TeX}book}",
   publisher = "Addison-Wesley",
   year = 1984
   }

@BOOK{latexbook,
   author = "Leslie Lamport",
   title = "{\LaTeX \rm:} {A} Document Preparation System",
   publisher = "Addison-Wesley",
   year = 1986
   }

@UNPUBLISHED{btxdoc,
   author = "Oren Patashnik",
   title = "{Using BibTeX}",
   note = "Documentation for general BibTeX users",
   month = jan,
   year = 1988
   }

@UNPUBLISHED{btxhak,
   author = "Oren Patashnik",
   title = "Designing BibTeX Styles",
   note = "The part of BibTeX's documentation
                            that's not meant for general users",
   month = jan,
   year = 1988
   }

@BOOK{strunk,
   author = "Strunk, Jr., William and E. B. White",
   title = "The Elements of Style",
   publisher = "Macmillan",
   edition = "Third",
   year = 1979
   }

@book{vanleunen,
   title = "A Handbook for Scholars",
   author = "Mary-Claire van Leunen",
   publisher = "Knopf",
   year = "1979"
   }

@ARTICLE{Zurek:1993,
   AUTHOR  = {Zurek, R. W. and Martin, L. J.},
   TITLE   = {Interannual Variability of planet-encircling dust activity on {M}ars},  
   YEAR    = {1993},
   JOURNAL = jgr,
   VOLUME  = {98},
   NUMBER  = {E2},
   PAGES   = {3247--3259}
}

@Article{Narendra_1990,
  author =       {K.S.Narendra and K.Parthsarathy},
  title =        {Identification and Control of Dynamical System
                  using Neural Networks},
  journal =      "IEENN",
  year =         {1990},
  volume =    {1},
  number =    {1},
  month =     {},
  pages =     {4-27},
  note =      {},
  annote =    {}
}

Compiling the document and bibliography

Some bibliography styles

Several of these styles are part of all LaTeX installations, and others can be downloaded from http://www.tug.org/tex-archive/biblio/bibtex/contrib/. Each is a file with the suffix .bst; for example, to use abbrvnat style, you must have the file abbrvnat.bst installed in your LaTeX directory, or in your current working directory, or anywhere where LaTeX can find it.

Those dissatisfied with the 100+ styles available online can design their own, if they wish; see Oren Patashnik's Designing BibTeX Styles.

Other reference information

(2) When using BibTeX, the interaction between names and accenting is somewhat tricky. You should use `G{\"o}del' or `G{\"{o}}del', and not `{G{\"{o}}del}' or `{G\"{o}del}'. (Thanks to Dana Jacobsen for this tip.)

(3) STANDARD ENTRY TYPES:

@article

An article from a journal or magazine

@book

A book with an explicit publisher

@booklet

A work that is printed and bound, but without a named publisher or sponsoring institution

@conference

The same as inproceedings

@inbook

A part of a book, which may be a chapter (or section or whatever) and/or a range of pages

@incollection

A part of a book having its own title

@inproceedings

An article in a conference proceedings

@manual

Technical documentation

@mastersthesis

A Master's thesis

@misc

Use this type when nothing else fits

@phdthesis

A PhD thesis

@proceedings

The proceedings of a conference

@techreport

A report published by a school or other institution, usually numbered within a series

@unpublished

A document having an author and title, but not formally published

@collection

Not a standard entry type. Use proceedings instead.

@patent

Not a standard entry type.

(4) STANDARD FIELDS

address

Usually the address of the publisher or other type of institution. For major publishing houses, van Leunen recommends omitting the information entirely. For small publishers, on the other hand, you can help the reader by giving the complete address.

annote

An annotation. It is not used by the standard bibliography styles, but may be used by others that produce an annotated bibliography.

author

The name(s) of the author(s), in the format described in the LaTeX book.

booktitle

Title of a book, part of which is being cited. See the LaTeX book for how to type titles. For book entries, use the title field instead.

chapter

A chapter (or section or whatever) number.

crossref

The database key of the entry being cross referenced. Any fields that are missing from the current record are inherited from the field being cross referenced.

edition

The edition of a book---for example, ``Second''. This should be an ordinal, and should have the first letter capitalized, as shown here; the standard styles convert to lower case when necessary.

editor

Name(s) of editor(s), typed as indicated in the LaTeX book. If there is also an author field, then the editor field gives the editor of the book or collection in which the reference appears.

howpublished

How something strange has been published. The first word should be capitalized.

institution

The sponsoring institution of a technical report.

journal

A journal name. Abbreviations are provided for many journals.

key

Used for alphabetizing, cross referencing, and creating a label when the ``author'' information is missing. This field should not be confused with the key that appears in the cite command and at the beginning of the database entry.

month

The month in which the work was published or, for an unpublished work, in which it was written. You should use the standard three-letter abbreviation, as described in Appendix B.1.3 of the LaTeX book.

note

Any additional information that can help the reader. The first word should be capitalized.

number

The number of a journal, magazine, technical report, or of a work in a series. An issue of a journal or magazine is usually identified by its volume and number; the organization that issues a technical report usually gives it a number; and sometimes books are given numbers in a named series.

organization

The organization that sponsors a conference or that publishes a manual.

pages

One or more page numbers or range of numbers, such as 42--111 or 7,41,73--97 or 43+ (the `+' in this last example indicates pages following that don't form a simple range). To make it easier to maintain Scribe-compatible databases, the standard styles convert a single dash (as in 7-33) to the double dash used in TeX to denote number ranges (as in 7--33).

publisher

The publisher's name.

school

The name of the school where a thesis was written.

series

The name of a series or set of books. When citing an entire book, the the title field gives its title and an optional series field gives the name of a series or multi-volume set in which the book is published.

title

The work's title, typed as explained in the LaTeX book.

type

The type of a technical report---for example, ``Research Note''.

volume

The volume of a journal or multi-volume book.

year

The year of publication or, for an unpublished work, the year it was written. Generally it should consist of four numerals, such as 1984, although the standard styles can handle any year whose last four nonpunctuation characters are numerals, such as `\hbox{(about 1984)}'.

---

Other (nonstandard) fields

---

affiliation

The authors affiliation.

abstract

An abstract of the work.

contents

A Table of Contents

copyright

Copyright information.

ISBN

The International Standard Book Number.

ISSN

The International Standard Serial Number. Used to identify a journal.

keywords

Key words used for searching or possibly for annotation.

language

The language the document is in.

location

A location associated with the entry, such as the city in which a conference took place.

LCCN

The Library of Congress Call Number.

mrnumber

The Mathematical Reviews number.

URL

The WWW Universal Resource Locator that points to the item being referenced. This often is used for technical reports to point to the ftp site where the postscript source of the report is located.