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• Bibliography management with bibtex
• 1 Advisory note
• 2 Introduction
• 3.1 A note on compilation times
• 4.1 Some notes on using \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) and .bib files
• 5.1 Multiple authors in \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\)
• 5.2 Multiple-word last names
• 5.3 I tried to use % to comment out some lines or entries in my .bib file, but I got lots of error messages instead?
• 6.1 Edit the .bib file as plain text
• 6.2 Help from GUI-based .bib editors
• 6.3 Export from reference library services
• 6.4 I’ve already got a reference list in a Microsoft Word/HTML/PDF file; can I somehow reuse the data without re-typing everything?
• 7.1 Further reading

Advisory note

If you are starting from scratch we recommend using biblatex because that package provides localization in several languages, it’s actively developed and makes bibliography management easier and more flexible.

Introduction

Many tutorials have been written about what \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) is and how to use it . However, based on our experience of providing support to Overleaf’s users, it’s still one of the topics that many newcomers to \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) find complicated—especially when things don’t go quite right; for example: citations aren’t appearing; problems with authors’ names; not sorted to a required order; URLs not displayed in the references list, and so forth.

In this article we’ll pull together all the threads relating to citations, references and bibliographies, as well as how Overleaf and related tools can help users manage these.

We’ll start with a quick recap of how \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) and bibliography database ( .bib ) files work and look at some ways to prepare .bib files. This is, of course, running the risk of repeating some of the material contained in many online tutorials, but future articles will expand our coverage to include bibliography styles and biblatex —the alternative package and bibliography processor.

Bibliography: just a list of \bibitems

Let’s first take a quick look “under the hood” to see what a \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) reference list is comprised of—please don’t start coding your reference list like this because later in this article we’ll look at other, more convenient, ways to do this.

A reference list really just a thebibliography list of \bibitems :

By default, this thebibliography environment is a numbered list with labels [1] , [2] and so forth. If the document class used is article , \begin{thebibliography} automatically inserts a numberless section heading with \refname (default value: References ). If the document class is book or report, then a numberless chapter heading with \bibname (default value: Bibliography ) is inserted instead. Each \bibitem takes a cite key as its parameter, which you can use with \cite commands, followed by information about the reference entry itself. So if you now write

together with the thebibliography block from before, this is what gets rendered into your PDF when you run a \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) processor (i.e. any of latex , pdflatex , xelatex or lualatex ) on your source file:

Figure 1: Citing entries from a thebibliography list.

Notice how each \bibitem is automatically numbered, and how \cite then inserts the corresponding numerical label.

\begin{thebibliography} takes a numerical argument: the widest label expected in the list. In this example we only have two entries, so 9 is enough. If you have more than ten entries, though, you may notice that the numerical labels in the list start to get misaligned:

Figure 2: thebibliography with a label that’s too short.

We’ll have to make it \begin{thebibliography}{99} instead, so that the longest label is wide enough to accommodate the longer labels, like this:

Figure 3: thebibliography with a longer label width.

If you compile this example code snippet on a local computer you may notice that after the first time you run pdflatex (or another \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) processor), the reference list appears in the PDF as expected, but the \cite commands just show up as question marks [?] .

This is because after the first \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) run the cite keys from each \bibitem ( texbook , lamport94 ) are written to the .aux file and are not yet available for reading by the \cite commands. Only on the second run of pdflatex are the \cite commands able to look up each cite key from the .aux file and insert the corresponding labels ( [1] , [2] ) into the output.

On Overleaf, though, you don’t have to worry about re-running pdflatex yourself. This is because Overleaf uses the latexmk build tool , which automatically re-runs pdflatex (and some other processors) for the requisite number of times needed to resolve \cite outputs. This also accounts for other cross-referencing commands, such as \ref and \tableofcontents .

A note on compilation times

Processing \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) reference lists or other forms of cross-referencing, such as indexes, requires multiple runs of software—including the \(\mathrm{\TeX}\) engine (e.g., pdflatex ) and associated programs such as \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\), makeindex , etc. As mentioned above, Overleaf handles all of these mulitple runs automatically, so you don’t have to worry about them. As a consequence, when the preview on Overleaf is refreshing for documents with bibliographies (or other cross-referencing), or for documents with large image files (as discussed separately here ), these essential compilation steps may sometimes make the preview refresh appear to take longer than on your own machine. We do, of course, aim to keep it as short as possible! If you feel your document is taking longer to compile than you’d expect, here are some further tips that may help.

Enter \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\)

There are, of course, some inconveniences with manually preparing the thebibliography list:

• It’s up to you to accurately format each \bibitem based on the reference style you’re asked to use—which bits should be in bold or italic? Should the year come immediately after the authors, or at the end of the entry? Given names first, or last names first?
• If you’re writing for a reference style which requires the reference list to be sorted by the last names of first authors, you’ll need to sort the \bibitem s yourself.
• For different manuscripts or documents that use different reference styles you’ll need to rewrite the \bibitem for each reference.

This is where \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) and bibliography database files ( .bib files) are extremely useful, and this is the recommended approach to manage citations and references in most journals and theses. The biblatex approach, which is slightly different and gaining popularity, also requires a .bib file but we’ll talk about biblatex in a future post.

Instead of formatting cited reference entries in a thebibliography list, we maintain a bibliography database file (let’s name it refs.bib for our example) which contains format-independent information about our references. So our refs.bib file may look like this:

You can find more information about other \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) reference entry types and fields here —there’s a huge table showing which fields are supported for which entry types. We’ll talk more about how to prepare .bib files in a later section.

Now we can use \cite with the cite keys as before, but now we replace thebibliography with a \bibliographystyle{...} to choose the reference style, as well as \bibliography{...} to point \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) at the .bib file where the cited references should be looked-up.

This is processed with the following sequence of commands, assuming our \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) document is in a file named main.tex (and that we are using pdflatex ):

• pdflatex main
• bibtex main

and we get the following output:

Figure 4: \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) output using the plain bibliography style.

Whoah! What’s going on here and why are all those (repeated) processes required? Well, here’s what happens.

During the first pdflatex run, all pdflatex sees is a \bibliographystyle{...} and a \bibliography{...} from main.tex . It doesn’t know what all the \cite{...} commands are about! Consequently, within the output PDF, all the \cite{...} commands are simply rendered as [?], and no reference list appears, for now. But pdflatex writes information about the bibliography style and .bib file, as well as all occurrences of \cite{...} , to the file main.aux .

It’s actually main.aux that \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) is interested in! It notes the .bib file indicated by \bibliography{...} , then looks up all the entries with keys that match the \cite{...} commands used in the .tex file. \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) then uses the style specified with \bibliographystyle{...} to format the cited entries, and writes a formatted thebibliography list into the file main.bbl . The production of the .bbl file is all that’s achieved in this step; no changes are made to the output PDF.

When pdflatex is run again, it now sees that a main.bbl file is available! So it inserts the contents of main.bbl i.e. the \begin{thebibliography}....\end{thebibliography} into the \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) source, where \bibliography{...} is. After this step, the reference list appears in the output PDF formatted according to the chosen \bibliographystyle{...} , but the in-text citations are still [?].

pdflatex is run again, and this time the \cite{...} commands are replaced with the corresponding numerical labels in the output PDF!

As before, the latexmk build tool takes care of triggering and re-running pdflatex and bibtex as necessary, so you don’t have to worry about this bit.

Some notes on using \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) and .bib files

A few further things to note about using \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) and .bib files :

• You may have noticed that although refs.bib contained five \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) reference entries, only two are included in the reference list in the output PDF. This is an important point about \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\): the .bib file’s role is to store bibliographic records, and only entries that have been cited (via \cite{...} ) in the .tex files will appear in the reference list. This is similar to how only cited items from an EndNote database will be displayed in the reference list in a Microsoft Word document. If you do want to include all entries—to be displayed but without actually citing all of them—you can write \nocite{*} . This also means you can reuse the same .bib file for all your \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) projects: entries that are not cited in a particular manuscript or report will be excluded from the reference list in that document.
• \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) requires one \bibliographystyle{...} and one \bibliography{...} to function correctly—in future posts we’ll see how to create multiple bibliographies in the same document. If you keep getting “undefined citation” warnings, check that you have indeed included those two commands, and that the names are spelled correctly. File extensions are not usually required, but bear in mind that file names are case sensitive on some operating systems—including on Overleaf! Therefore, if you typed \bibliographystyle{IEEetran} (note the typo: “e”) instead of \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran} , or wrote \bibliography{refs} when the actual file name is Refs.bib , you’ll get the dreaded [?] as citations.
• In the same vein, treat your cite keys as case-sensitive, always. Use the exact same case or spelling in your \cite{...} as in your .bib file.
• The order of references in the .bib file does not have any effect on how the reference list is ordered in the output PDF: the sorting order of the reference list is determined by the \bibliographystyle{...} . For example, some readers might have noticed that, within my earlier example, the first citation in the text latex2e is numbered [2], while the second citation in the text ( texbook ) is numbered [1]! Have \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) and \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) lost the plot? Not at all: this is actually because the plain style sorts the reference list by alphabetical order of the first author’s last name . If you prefer a scheme where the numerical citation labels are numbered sequentially throughout the text, you’ll have to choose a bibliography style which implements this. For example, if instead we had used \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran} for that example, we’d get the following output. Notice also how the formatting of each cited item in the reference list has automatically updated to suit the IEEE’s style:

Figure 5: IEEEtran bibliography style output.

We’ll talk more about different bibliography styles, including author–year citation schemes, in a future article. For now, let’s turn our attention to .bib file contents, and how we can make the task of preparing .bib files a bit easier.

Taking another look at .bib files

As you may have noticed earlier, a .bib file contains \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) bibliography entries that start with an entry type prefixed with an @ . Each entry has a some key–value \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) fields , placed within a pair of braces ( {...} ). The cite key is the first piece of information given within these braces, and every field in the entry must be separated by a comma :

As a general rule, every bibliography entry should have an author , year and title field, no matter what the type is. There are about a dozen entry types although some bibliography styles may recognise/define more; however, it is likely that you will most frequently use the following entry types:

• @article for journal articles (see example above).
• @inproceedings for conference proceeding articles:
• @book for books (see examples above).
• @phdthesis , @masterthesis for dissertations and theses:
• @inbook is for a book chapter where the entire book was written by the same author(s): the chapter of interest is identified by a chapter number:
• @incollection is for a contributed chapter in a book, so would have its own author and title . The actual title of the entire book is given in the booktitle field; it is likely that an editor field will also be present:
• you will often find it useful to add \usepackage{url} or \usepackage{hyperref} in your .tex files’ preamble (for more robust handling of URLs);
• not all bibliography styles support the url field: plain doesn’t, but IEEEtran does. All styles support note . More on this in a future post;
• you should be mindful that even web pages and @misc entries should have an author , a year and a title field:

Multiple authors in \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\)

In a .bib file, commas are only used to separate the last name from the first name of an author—if the last name is written first. Individual author names are separated by and . So these are correct:

But none of the following will work correctly —you’ll get weird output, or even error messages from \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\)! So take extra care if you are copying author names from a paper or from a web page.

Multiple-word last names

If an author’s last name is made up of multiple words separated by spaces, or if it’s actually an organisation, place an extra pair of braces around the last name so that \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) will recognise the grouped words as the last name:

Alternatively, you can use the Lastname, Firstname format; some users find that clearer and more readable:

Remember: Whether the first or last name appears first in the output (“John Doe” vs “Doe, John”), or whether the first name is automatically abbreviated “J. Doe” or “Doe, J.” vs “John Doe” “J. Doe”), all such details are controlled by the \bibliographystyle .

I tried to use % to comment out some lines or entries in my .bib file, but I got lots of error messages instead?

% is actually not a comment character in .bib files! So, inserting a % in .bib files not only fails to comment out the line, it also causes some \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) errors. To get \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) to ignore a particular field we just need to rename the field to something that \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) doesn’t recognise. For example, if you want to keep a date field around but prefer that it’s ignored (perhaps because you want \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) to use the year field instead) write Tdate = {...} or the more human-readable IGNOREdate = {...} .

To get \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) to ignore an entire entry you can remove the @ before the entry type. A valid reference entry always starts with a @ followed by the entry type; without the @ character \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) skips the lines until it encounters another @ .

How/where do I actually get those .bib files?

Edit the .bib file as plain text.

Because .bib files are plain text you can certainly write them by hand—once you’re familiar with \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\)’s required syntax. Just make sure that you save it with a .bib extension, and that your editor doesn’t surreptitiously add a .txt or some other suffix. On Overleaf you can click on the “Files…” link at the top of the file list panel, and then on “Add blank file” to create a fresh .bib file to work on.

Pro tip: Did you know that Google Scholar search results can be exported to a \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) entry? Click on the “Cite” link below each search result, and then on the “\(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\)” option search. You can then copy the \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) entry generated. Here’s a video that demonstrates the process. Note that you should always double-check the fields presented in the entry, as the automatically populated information isn’t always comprehensive or accurate!

Help from GUI-based .bib editors

Many users prefer to use a dedicated \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) bibliography database editor/manager, such as JabRef or BibDesk to maintain, edit and add entries to their .bib files. Using a GUI can indeed help reduce syntax and spelling errors whilst creating bibliography entries in a \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) file. If you prefer, you can prepare your .bib file on your own machine using JabRef, BibDesk or another utility, and then upload it to your Overleaf.

Pro tip: If you’d like to use the same .bib for multiple Overleaf projects, have a look at this help article to set up a “master project”, or this one for sharing files from Google Drive (the instructions apply to other cloud-based storage solutions, such as Dropbox).

Export from reference library services

If you click on the Upload files button above the file list panel, you'll notice some options: Import from Mendeley, and Import from Zotero. If you’re already using one of those reference library management services, Overleaf can now hook into the Web exporter APIs provided by those services to import the .bib file (generated from your library) into your Overleaf project. For more information, see the Overleaf article How to link your Overleaf account to Mendeley and Zotero .

For other reference library services that don’t have a public API, or are not yet directly integrated with Overleaf, such as EndNote or Paperpile , look for an “export to .bib ” option in the application or service. Once you have a .bib file, you can then add it to your Overleaf project.

I’ve already got a reference list in a Microsoft Word/HTML/PDF file; can I somehow reuse the data without re-typing everything?

It used to be that you would have to hand-code each line into a \bibitem or an @article{...} entry (or another entry type) in a .bib file. As you can imagine, it’s not exactly a task that many people look forward to. Fortunately, these days some tools are available to help. They typically take a plain text file, e.g.

and attempt to parse the lines, converting it into a structured bibliography as a \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) .bib file. For example, have a look at text2bib or Edifix . Be sure to go through the options of these tools carefully, so that they work well with your existing unstructured bibliography in plain text.

Summary and further reading

We’ve had a quick look at how \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\) processes a .bib bibliography database file to resolve \cite commands and produce a formatted reference list, as well as how to prepare .bib files.

Happy \(\mathrm{Bib\TeX}\)ing!

Further reading

For more information see:

• Bibtex bibliography styles
• Bibliography management with natbib
• Bibliography management with biblatex
• BibTeX documentation at CTAN web site
• tocbind package documentation
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LaTeX Guide : Citing with BibTeX

• Introduction
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LaTeX uses the BibTeX (.bib) file format to manage and process lists of references in order to produce in-text citations and formatted bibliographies. It is possible to create a BibTeX file from scratch using a text editor, but many literature databases and most modern citation managers can export directly to this format.

• Bibliography management with BibTeX An introduction to using BibTeX and .bib files for bibliography management, including solutions to common problems. From Overleaf.
• BibTeX Basic introduction to the BibTeX file format and how to use it with LaTeX.
• Choosing a BibTeX style Guide from Reed College on various citation styles and how to use them with BibTeX and LaTeX.

Citation Managers and LaTeX/BibTeX

Jabref is a free reference manager with native BibTeX and BibLaTeX support—it's designed for use with systems like LaTeX and includes cite-while-you-write functionality for LaTeX editors like Kile, LyX, and TeXstudio.

• JabRef Free citation manager with BibTeX support. Made by researchers for researchers.

Zotero is a free, open source citation manager. To create a BibTeX file with Zotero:

• Save all your references into a single collection folder
• Right click that collection in Zotero ( Ctrl + click for Mac OS)
• Choose Export Collection...
• Change the format from RIS to BibTeX

This will create a .bib file for you. Because Zotero is open source, there are a number of third-party plugins you can get to add or improve functionality. Better BibTeX for Zotero is highly recommended if you will be using Zotero for citation management for a LaTeX project.

• Better BibTeX for Zotero A plugin for Zotero that makes it easier for LaTeX users to manage bibliographic data.
• How to link your Overleaf account to Mendeley and Zotero For users with premium subscriptions only.

EndNote is a powerful citation manager, but the full version cannot be used without the purchase of a software license. The paid version of EndNote can produce a BibTeX file for your references, with some limitations. To do this:

• Save all your references into a single EndNote group
• Select the references in EndNote (use Ctrl +A for Windows or Cmd + A for Mac OS to select all)
• From the main menu choose File > Export...
• Choose BibTeX Export as the file output style (this may require installing the BibTeX Export style from the Style Manager)
• Save the file
• EndNote creates a plain text (.txt) file with BibTeX formatting inside; you will need to manually change it to .bib

Note: these instructions were created using EndNote 20. The process may not be exactly the same for other versions of EndNote.

• Can I use Overleaf with EndNote? Instructions for using EndNote to manage references for an Overleaf LaTeX project.

Mendeley is a free citation manager. Follow the directions below to create a BibTeX file containing the references from a Mendeley collection.

• Save all your references into a single folder
• Navigate to that folder in Mendeley Reference Manager
• Choose File > Export All from the main menu
• Choose BibTeX (*.bib) and save your file

Note: the steps may vary depending on the version of Mendeley being used.

• Exporting references from Mendeley Instructions for exporting your Mendeley reference library to a variety of formats. Note that this creates a static file.
• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: UW-Madison Templates >>
• Last Updated: May 29, 2024 3:50 PM
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Avoid plagiarism — quickly check for missing citations and check for writing mistakes., is your source credible don’t forget to consider these factors., purpose : reason the source exists.

• Is the point of the information to inform, persuade, teach, or sell?
• Do the authors/publishers make their intentions clear?
• Does the information appear to be fact or opinion?
• Does the point of view seem impartial? Do they identify counter-arguments?

Authority - Author: Source of the information

• Who is the author? What are their credentials or qualifications?
• What makes the author qualified to write on this topic?
• Is there clearly defined contact information for the author?

Authority - Publisher: Source of the information

• Who is the publisher? Is it a non-profit, government agency, or organization? How might this affect their point of view?
• What makes the publisher qualified to generate works on this subject?
• What can the URL tell you about the publisher? For instance, .gov may signify that it is a government agency.

Relevance : Importance of the information to your topic

Currency : timeliness of the information.

• When was the information published? When was it last updated? Does it reflect the most current information available?
• How does your topic fit in with this source’s publication date? Do you need current information to make your point or do older sources work better?

Comprehensiveness

• Does the source present one or multiple viewpoints on your topic?
• Does the source present a large amount of information on the topic? Or is it short and focused?
• Are there any points you feel may have been left out, on purpose or accidentally, that affect its comprehensiveness?
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universalSourceForm.defaults.intro.title

universalSourceForm.overwrites.thesis.intro.text,universalSourceForm.defaults.intro.text

• NPS Dudley Knox Library
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Citation Guide

• BibTeX Code ≤ v2.6
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  BIBTEX NPS Template v2.6 and earlier: Code Examples (Click  here  if you are using version 2.7 or above)

The following codes are customized for NPS theses and are not intended for use with any other publisher or template. The NPS thesis LaTeX template comes prepackaged with a BibTeX tool and a bib file containing the examples below.

Blog

Blog

Always check your output against the . Use misc class. @misc{locke_2020,   author        = "J. Locke",   title         = "Effect of weird tails in 35mm Innsmouth sprocket periodicity distributions on re-tiered bicyclical phase shifting using {C}thulhean logic",   month         = "Dec. 22,",   year          = "2020",   howpublished  = "Thing’s Credible!, blog",    url           = "https://wrywhisker.pulpfriction.net/wallcrust/linear-colinear-felinear.html" }

Chapter in Edited Book
Book Chapter One author, two editors	Always check your output against the . Use incollection class. @incollection{haynes_2009,   author        = "P. Haynes",   editor        = "D. Moran and J. A. Russel",   title         = "Al-{Q}aeda, oil dependence, and {U.S.} foreign policy",   booktitle     = "Energy Security and Global Politics: The Militarization of Resource Management",   publisher     = "Routledge",   address       = "New York, NY, USA",   year          = "2009",   pages         = "62--77" }
Electronic Book
DOI or URL	Always check your output against the . Use ebook entry, with howpublished and URL declarations. @ebook{bonds_2014,   author        = "M. E. Bonds",   title         = "Absolute Music: The History of an Idea",   howpublished  = "Oxford University Press, New York, NY, USA, 2014.",   url           = "https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199343638.003.0004" }
From book provider	Always check your output against the . Normal ebook entry, with howpublished decorations. @ebook{krishnan_2008,   author        = "A. Krishnan",   title         = "War as Business: Technological Change and Military Service Contracting",   howpublished  = "Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2008. Kindle edition" }
Print Book
One author	Always check your output against the . Normal use of book class. @book{pollan_2006,   author        = "M. Pollan",   title         = "The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals",   publisher     = "Penguin",   address       = "New York, NY, USA",   edition       = "2nd ed.",   year          = "2006" }
Two authors with edition number	Always check your output against the . Normal use of book class. @book{strindberg_warn_2011,   author        = "A. Strindberg and M. Wärn",   title         = " Islamism: Religion, Radicalization and Resistance",   publisher     = "John Wiley and Sons",   address       = "Hoboken, NJ, USA",   edition       = "2nd ed.",   year          = "2011" }
Section (in a series, portion, volume)
In a series	Always check your output against the . Not just a book, but a part of a book portion (since there is page range), so the inbook class is more appropriate. If there were no pages, we could use book. @inbook{abramowitz_64,   editor        = "M. Abramowitz and I. A. Stegun",   title         = "Handbook of Mathematical Functions",   series        = "Applied Mathematics Series 55",   publisher     = "NBS",   address       = "Washington, DC, USA",   pages         = "32--33",   year          = "1964" }
Portion	Always check your output against the . Normal use of inbook. @inbook{orend_2013,   author        = "B. Orend",   title         = "Morality of War",   publisher     = "Broadview Press",   address       = "Tonawanda, NY, USA",   edition       = "2nd ed.",   year          = "2013",   chapter       = "2, sec.\ 3",   pages         = "67--70" }
Volume	Always check your output against the . Normal use of incollection for a chapter in a volume of collected works. @incollection{myer_77,   author        = "R. L. Myer",   editor        = "P. G. Harper and B. S. Wherret",   title         = "Parametric oscillators and nonlinear materials",   booktitle     = "Nonlinear Optics",   publisher     = "Academic Press",   address       = "San Francisco, CA, USA",   year          = "1977",   volume        = "4",   pages         = "47--160" }

Class Notes / Lecture / Presentation / Workshop	Always check your output against the . Use misc @misc{NPS_notes_2013,   title         = "New applications in computational mechanics",   organization  = "Dept. of Mech. and Aerosp. Eng., Naval Postgraduate School",   howpublished  = "class notes for Computational Mechanics",   address       = "Monterey, CA, USA",   year          = "spring 2013" }
Computer Program / Software	Always check your output against the . Normal software entry. Note "and" between multiple authors. @software{comprehensive_2005,   author        = "M. Borenstein and L. Hedges and J. Higgins and H. Rothstein",   address       = "Englewood, NJ, USA",   title         = "Comprehensive Meta-Analysis",   howpublished  = "ver. 2",   year          = "2005",   url           = "http://www.meta-analysis.com" }
Conference Proceedings (online)	Always check your output against the .     Variant of inproceedings class. Note "and" between multiple authors. @inproceedings{morentz_2009,   author        = "J. W. Morentz and C. Doyle and L. Skelly and N. Adam",   title         = "{Unified Incident Command and Decision Support (UICDS) a Department of Homeland Security initiative in information sharing}",   booktitle     = "2009 IEEE Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security",   year          = "2009",   url           = "https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5168032" }
Conference Proceedings (print)	Always check your output against the . Normal use of inproceedings class. @inproceedings{katz_2007,   author        = "I. Katz and K. Gabayan and H. Aghajan",   title         = "A multi-touch surface using multiple cameras",   booktitle     = "Adv. Conc. for Intell. Vis. Sys.: 9th Intl. Conf.",   year          = "2007",   pages         = "133--203" }
Paper Presented at a Conference Unpublished	Always check your output against the . Use misc.  Notice the {} around first letters of proper nouns in the title. @misc{kirby_2013,   author        = "K. Kirby and J. Stratton",   title         = "{V}an {A}llen probes: Successful launch campaign and early operations exploring {E}arth's radiation belts",   howpublished  = "presented at the IEEE Aerospace Conference",   address       = "Big Sky, MT, USA",   year          = "2013" }

Database Published	Always check your output against the . Normal use of electronic class. @electronic{nsa_ipac_2012,   author        = "{NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database}",   organization  = "Object name IRAS F00400+4059",   url           = "http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/",   note          = "Accessed Dec. 10, 2012" }
Dictionary / Encyclopedia	Always check your output against the . Use misc class, placing most elements in howpublished. Note italics on dictionary name. @misc{merriam_2017,   title         = "Metamorphosis",   howpublished  = {\emph{Merriam-Webster}. Accessed July 6, 2017},   url           = "https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metamorphosis" }
Fact Sheet	Always check your output against the . Use misc class, placing most elements in howpublished. Note italics on title. @misc{texas_2015,   author        = "{Texas Instruments}",   howpublished  = {\emph{LM555 timer}, SNAS548D, 2015},   url           = "https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm555.pdf" }

Strategy Document / Other Government Report

-->

Directive
Directive	Always check your output against the . Follow the manual style. Note use of "Online" if found online. @manual{dod_5000.1,   title         = "The Defense Acquisition System",   howpublished  = "DOD Directive 5000.1",   organization  = "Under Secretary of Defense (AT\&L)",   address       = "Washington, DC, USA",   year          = "2003.",   url           = "http://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/ DD/issuances/dodm/857001m.pdf" }
Doctrine
Doctrine	Always check your output against the . Follow the manual style. Note use of "Online" if found online. @manual{JP1,   title         = "Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States",   howpublished  = "JP-1",   organization  = "Joint Chiefs of Staff",   address       = "Washington, DC, USA",   year          = "2017.",   url           = "https://fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp1.pdf" }
Field Manual / Military Regulation
Field Manual / Military Regulation	Always check your output against the . Follow the manual style. We add the section range as a note, since its not a normal page range. @manual{sniper_2011,   title         = "Sniper Training",   howpublished  = "FM 23-10",   organization  = "U.S. Dept. of the Army",   address       = "Washington, DC, USA",   year          = "1995",   url           = "https://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-us-archive/fm_23-10\%2894\%29.pdf" }
Government Report
CRS or GAO Report	Always check your output against the . Variant of misc class. @misc{erwin_2011,   author        = "M. C. Erwin",   title         = "Intelligence issues for Congress",   address       = "Washington, DC: USA",   howpublished  = "CRS Report No. RL33539",   year          = "2011.",   url           = "http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33539.pdf" }
NEED CODE for  White House. National Security Strategy
Instruction
Instruction	Always check your output against the . Follow the manual style. @manual{instruction_1000.01,   title         = "Identification (ID) Cards Required by the Geneva Convention",   howpublished  = "DOD Instruction 1000.01",   organization  = "Department of Defense",   address       = "Washington, DC, USA",   year          = "2012",   pages         = "1-1, 1-10" }
Memorandum
Memorandum	Always check your output against the . Variant of misc class. Notice escaping for special characters in URL. @misc{takai_2013,   author        = "T. M. Takai",   title         = "Adoption of the national information exchange model within the {D}epartment of {D}efense",   address       = "Washington, DC: USA",   howpublished  = "official memorandum,  {D}epartment of {D}efense, Washington, DC, USA",   year          = "2013.",   url           = "http://dodcio.defense.gov/Portals/0/Documents/2013-03-28\%20Adoption\%20of\%20the\%20NIEM\%20within\%20the\%20DoD.pdf" }

Print	Always check your output against the . Follows the manual style.  @manual{transmission_comm_85,   title         = "Transmission Systems for Communications",   edition       = "3rd",   organization  = "Western Elect. Co.",   address       = "Winston-Salem, NC, USA",   year          = "1985",   pages         = "44--60" }

Online	Always check your output against the . Article entry populated with URL in year field. @article{sanico_2018,   author        = "G. Sanico and M. Kakinaka",   title         = "Terrorism and deterrence policy with transnational support",   journal       = "Def. \& Peace Econ.",   volume        = "19",   number        = "2",   year          = "2018. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10242690701505419",   month         = Apr }
Print	Always check your output against the . Normal use of article class. @article{wang_2014,   author        = "W. Q. Wang and H. Shao",   title         = "High altitude platform multichannel {SAR} for wide-area and staring imaging",   journal       = "Aerosp. and Electron. Syst.",   volume        = "29",   number        = "25",   month         = mar,   year          = "2014",   pages         = "12--17" }

Legislative Document	--> Always check your output against the . Variant of electronic with strange authors, use journal field to put title in italics. @electronic{congress_1991,   author        = "{U.S. House. 102nd Congress, 1st Session}",   journal       = "H. Con. Res. 1, To Express the Sense of the Congress That Congress Must Approve Any Offensive Military Action Against Iraq",   year          = "1991",   month         = "Jan. 11",   url           = "https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/house-concurrent-resolution/1?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22h.+con.+res.+1% 22%5D%7D&s=1&r=1" }
Public Law Published in the	Always check your output against the . Variant of electronic with strange authors, most information in howpublished. @electronic{americans_1991,   author        = "{Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990}",   howpublished  = "42 U.S.C. § 12101. 1991" }

Google Map	Always check your output against the . Use misc class. @misc{Google_2017,   author        = "Google",   title         = "Monterey Bay",   month         = "Accessed Jul. 6, 2017.",   url           = "https://www.google.com/maps/ place/Monterey+Bay/@36.7896106,-122.0843052,11z/data= !3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x808e0ccfc5859dfd:0x124654a608855d43!8m2!3d36.8007413!4d-121.947311" }

Online	Always check your output against the . Use misc, entering "Online" in year. Note period and comma in month. @misc{linguine_2016,   author        = "L. Linguine",   title         = "Animal fat shampoos for achieving angel hair",   journal       = "Knife and Spork Semi-Weekly",   year          = "2016",   month         = "Jul. 15,",   url           = "http://www.chickenyodeling.com/dfjgp98y4t34_pherg899h.html/" }
Print	Always check your output against the . Variant of misc. Use italics in howpublished and comma in month. @misc{stulberg_2016,   author        = "J. Stulberg",   title         = "The art of creating crossword puzzles",   howpublished  = "\emph{The New York Times}",   year          = "2016",   month         = "Jul. 15," }

Patent	Always check your output against the . Normal use of patent class. @patent{bell_1876,   author        = "A. G. Bell",   title         = "Improvement in telegraphy",   nationality   = "United States",   number        = "174465",   day           = "7",   month         = Mar,   year          = "1876",   url           = "https://www.google.com/patents/US174465" }

	Always check your output against the . Use misc class. @misc{ajanlekoko_2009,   author        = "R. Ajanlekoko",   howpublished  = "private communication",   year          = "2009",   month         = "Sep." }

Research Report / Think Tank Report / White Paper
Research Report / Think Tank Report / White Paper	Always check your output against the . Use misc class, placing a lot of info in howpublished. @misc{dixon_2017,   author        = "L. Dixon and N. Clancy and B. M. Miller and S. Hoegberg and M. M. Lewis and {B. Bender et al.}",   title         = "The cost and affordability of flood insurance in New York City",   howpublished   = "RAND Corp., Santa Monica, CA, USA, RR-1776-NYCEDC",   year          = "2017",   url           = "https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1700/RR1776/ RAND_RR1776.pdf" }
Technical Report
Technical Report Author given (online)	Always check your output against the . Use techreport class. @techreport{effendi_2009,   author        = "S. V. Effendi and X. Vilhjálmsson",   title         = "The absorption rate of potatoes in salmonella",   institution   = "Dept. Vet. Stud.",   address       = "Madison, WI, USA",   number        = "17-59",   year          = "2009",   url           = "https://vetstudies.edu/donteatthosefries.html" }
Technical Report Author given (print)	Always check your output against the . Normal use of techreport class. @techreport{abdulatipov_2012,   author        = "K. A. Abdulatipov and F. Ramazonov",   title         = "The absorption rate of E. coli in cats",   institution   = "Dept. Vet. Stud.",   address       = "Madison, WI, USA",   number        = "17-59",   year          = "2012" }
Technical Report Organization as author (online)	Always check your output against the . (Mis)use techreport class, place address in institution declaration. @techreport{national_toxicology_2012,   author        = "{National Toxicology Program}",   title         = "Toxicology and carcinogenesis studies of trimethylolpropane triacrylate {(CASRN 15625-89-5) in F344/N rats and B6C3F1/N mice (Topical Application Studies)}",   institution   = "Washington, DC, USA",   number        = "TR-576",   year          = "2012",   url           = "https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/results/pubs/longterm/reports/longterm/tr500580 ?/listedreports/tr576/index.html" }

Standard	Standard: Always check your output against the . Standards fit well with manual class. @manual{standard_1968,   title         = "Letter Symbols for Quantities",   howpublished  = "ANSI Standard Y10.5",   year          = "1968" }

Dissertation (print)	Always check your output against the . Normal use of phdthesis class. @phdthesis{rivera_2010,   author        = "J. Rivera",   title         = "Software system architecture modeling methodology for naval gun weapon systems",   school        = "Dept. of Comp. Sci., Harvard Univ.",   address       = "Cambridge, MA, USA",   year          = "2010" }
Thesis From an institutional archive such as the NPS Archive: Calhoun	Always check your output against the . Use mastersthesis class. Enter "M.S. thesis" in type field. If online, enter "Online" in  year declaration. @mastersthesis{Moon_1993,   author        = "T. D. Moon",   title         = "Rising dragon: Infrastructure development and Chinese influence in Vietnam",   school        = "Dept. of Natl. Sec. Aff., NPS",   address       = "Monterey, CA, USA",   type          = "M.S. thesis",   year          = "1993",   url           = "http://hdl.handle.net/10945/4694" }

Unpublished Work Accepted for publication	Always check your output against the . Normal use of unpublished class. @unpublished{briscoe_unpub,   author        = "R. Briscoe",   title         = "Egocentric spatial representation in action and perception",   note          = "unpublished" }

Author and date given	Always check your output against the . Use misc class. @misc{Roth_2017,   author        = "R. Roth",   title         = "75 years ago, the {D}oolittle {R}aid changed history",   howpublished  = "CNN",   month         = "Apr. 18,",    year          = "2017",   url           = "http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/18/us/75th-anniversary-doolittle-raid/index.html" }
Organization as author	Always check your output against the . Use misc class. Use brackets around organization as author. @misc{FBI_2017,   author        = {{Federal Bureau of Investigation}},   title         = {Forging papers to sell fake art},   month         = "Apr. 6,",    year          = "2017",   url           = "https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/forging-papers-to-sell-fake-art" }
Organization as author, no date given	Always check your output against the . Use misc class, using double brackets around author to retain capitalization, entering period in title, entering "online" in howpublished. @misc{dep_defense_2017,   author        = {{Department of Defense}},   title         = {{About the Department of Defense (DOD).}},   howpublished  = "Accessed Apr. 18, 2017",    url           = "https://www.defense.gov/About/" }
Janes example	Always check your output against the . Use misc class, placing many elements in howpublished. @misc{Janes_2017,   title         = "Mali: Executive summary",   howpublished = {Jane's, May 31, 2017},   url           = "https://customer.janes.com/" }

Wikipedia	Always check your output against the . Use misc class, placing many elements in howpublished. Note italics command for "Wikipedia." @misc{wiki_2016,   title         = "Psychology",   howpublished  = {\emph{Wikipedia}. Accessed May 17, 2011},   url           = "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology" }

Working Paper / Occasional Paper

Always check your output against the . Misc works well, placing many elements in howpublished. @misc{sushi_2021,   author        = "U. Q. Sushi",   title         = "Three-handed {F}ibonacci model for optimizing surface-to-volume ratio of temaki in {H}ilbert space",   howpublished  = "working paper, Donburi Inst. of Int. Gastron, Pierre, SD, USA, 2021",   url           = "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology" }

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• Plagiarism and grammar
• Citation guides

Cite a Thesis in BIBTEX

Don't let plagiarism errors spoil your paper

Consider your source's credibility. ask these questions:, contributor/author.

• Has the author written several articles on the topic, and do they have the credentials to be an expert in their field?
• Can you contact them? Do they have social media profiles?
• Have other credible individuals referenced this source or author?
• Book: What have reviews said about it?
• What do you know about the publisher/sponsor? Are they well-respected?
• Do they take responsibility for the content? Are they selective about what they publish?
• Take a look at their other content. Do these other articles generally appear credible?
• Does the author or the organization have a bias? Does bias make sense in relation to your argument?
• Is the purpose of the content to inform, entertain, or to spread an agenda? Is there commercial intent?
• Are there ads?
• When was the source published or updated? Is there a date shown?
• Does the publication date make sense in relation to the information presented to your argument?
• Does the source even have a date?
• Was it reproduced? If so, from where?
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Guide to BibTeX Type MasterThesis

BibTeX is a reference management tool that is commonly used in LaTeX documents. The “masterthesis” BibTeX type is used for master’s theses. In this guide, we will explain the required and optional fields for the “masterthesis” BibTeX type.

Need a simple solution for managing your BibTeX entries? Explore CiteDrive!

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Required Fields

The “masterthesis” BibTeX type requires the following fields:

• author : The author of the thesis.
• title : The title of the thesis.
• school : The name of the institution that awarded the degree.
• year : The year the degree was awarded.

Optional Fields

In addition to the required fields, the “masterthesis” BibTeX type also has a number of optional fields that can be used to provide additional information. These fields include:

• type : The type of the thesis, such as “Master’s thesis”.
• address : The location of the institution.
• month : The month the thesis was submitted.
• note : Any additional information about the thesis.

Here is an example of how to use the “masterthesis” BibTeX type:

In this example, the BibTeX entry defines a master’s thesis authored by Jane Doe titled “A Study of Example”. The degree was awarded in 2022 by the University of Example, and the thesis was submitted in June in Example City, CA. The type of the thesis is specified as “Master’s thesis”, and a note is included that provides a URL for the thesis.

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How to cite a published phd dissertation in bibtex using @phdthesis.

I have the following entry. But when I cite it in my paper, I keep getting "Unpublished doctoral dissertation" showing up in the entry. As far as I can tell there's no field to specify publishing information, so how do I get rid of this message?

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How to cite a senior project in BibTeX

I want to cite a senior project of a student in my thesis. However, I don't really have much information about the student.

I know, the title of his work, his name , his university and the link to the pdf file. I know that it is a senior project, because the link is something like

university.edu/.../SeniorProject_NameSurname.pdf

What should the BibTeX code be for this situation?

Thanks in advance.

• Do you know the year when it was published? If so, it's a good idea to include it in the citation. –  Federico Poloni Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 9:02

2 Answers 2

When I'm not sure about citation format, I usually use Google Scholar to create it for me.

BibTeX code will look similar to this:

If your style does not have the 'url' parameter, then 'note' is usually used for this purpose.

And as Aleksandr Blekh pointed out, it's good to look in the list of possible BibTeX entries and choose the right format (phdthesis, article, book etc.).

Otherwise, for creating and editing larger citation "databases" I use JabRef . And lately I've found a simple online program for creating BibTeX citations too.

• I searched the title, and google scholar had no results. I found the study by googling on web. Can google Scholar create a bibtex code, even if it doesn't have it in search results? –  ThePortakal Commented Jun 26, 2015 at 23:11
• AFAIK it can't, but you can write it according to the one I've added to my answer. And, by the way, I don't think this is a suitable question for Academia. It should belong to tex.stackexchange.com . –  Eenoku Commented Jun 26, 2015 at 23:14
• 3 Actually, the phdthesis reference type would be wrong in this case (perhaps, you didn't pay enough attention to or misunderstood the question's circumstances). The OP wants to cite a project in their thesis , not to cite a thesis somewhere else. Therefore, the reference type should IMHO be either unpublished , or misc (see this document ). –  Aleksandr Blekh Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 0:40
• 1 @AleksandrBlekh Oh, my mistake, I mixed up a senior project with a final thesis, in my country it's sometimes called in a similar way. I'll correct my answer and add your link to it. –  Eenoku Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 8:47

While a BibTeX code per se, obviously, is limited to including fields for only known parameters of the reference, the exact code for citation formatting would significantly depend on the required (or desired) publication style , which you haven't mentioned. For some help with the customizing your bibliography's look for your needs, please see links and references in my related answer .

• What's the difference in the code of citations? AFAIK the code is still the same, only the appearance of citations is changed according to the publication style used. –  Eenoku Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 8:53
• @MartinBeseda: The "appearance of citations", which in my answer I referred to as "citation formatting", is an essential part of bibliography. It is important to make sure the formatting style matches the one, recommended in a particular publication style guide. Thus, there might be a need to customize the style, using LaTeX code for formatting (style) as well, hence my answer. –  Aleksandr Blekh Commented Jun 27, 2015 at 18:09

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BibTeX phdthesis template

The phdthesis entry type is intended to be used for a PhD thesis.

Minimal template

Minimal template with required fields only for a BibTeX phdthesis entry.

Full template

Full template including required and optional fields for a BibTeX phdthesis entry.

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How can i generate a table from a bibtex/ris file with a formatted citation and some extra data

I am currently working on a bibliographical review for my thesis.

During this process i have been using mendeley to import citations and manage them.

Now i have to create a table with each one of the citations i have reviewed (>300) and include the reasons why i have decided to include/exclude them in my review.

Currently i have an excel file created from an xml export of mendeley in which i have the title of the publication and the reasoning behind its inclusion/exclusion.

I need some way to mass export the citations as APA style and merge it with my excel file. I tried checking some pyhon modules without any luck.

Can anyone help me find a solution so i don't have to do it manually?

• bibliography

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Institute Name in @masterthesis Citations

I need to cite master thesis and the lecture notes into a document. But the problem with @masterthesis and @unpublished citations is they don't print an institution name in the pdflatex output of bibliography.

I get this bibliography output:

[1] Fris. Bike Model. XXX, 2016. [2] Koch. “Electrical Engineering Book”. Lecture Notes. 2015.

Any suggestions, how we can also print an institute name?

• 3 What kind of bibliography package do you use? Do you really use biblatex as your tagging suggests? Please consider adding an MWE so we can see how you are creating your bibliography, a solution may very well depend on your setup. In biblatex you'll have to use institution for the @thesis type, but school is still supported as an alias. –  moewe Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 11:21
• There is a , missing after bhgt –  samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 14:51

2 Answers 2

• Use @master s thesis (with an s after master ) instead of @masterthesis (which doesn’t exist and probably defaults to some other type), then school will appear.

The entry type @unpublished doesn’t support school , so I’d suggest using note instead, as is recommended in the biblatex documentation:

Use the fields howpublished and note to supply additional information in free format, if applicable.

You could also use the field addendum , which would appear at the very end.

It would probably be more proper and clean to redefine the output of @unpublished to include school / institution , but as a one-off solution, this should be fine.

Here’s the output:

As a side note: The official field names in biblatex are institution , not school ; and location , not address , but the latter ones do work as aliases.

• Thanks. It Works. @doncherry But all other bibliography entries are without " " and in italic form. Adding s in @masterthesis and note in @unpublished have made the text normal (instead of italic) and covered it with " " (it is also shown in the output you have posted). –  Yousaf Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 17:07
• Author names are in normal form but all titles are in italic form. –  Yousaf Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 17:16
• @ArslanYousaf @unpublished is quoted and upright in your MWE as well. You could change the type to @misc to get it in italics. @mastersthesis is indeed printed more like an @article than like a @book . You could add \DeclareFieldFormat[thesis]{title}{\mkbibemph{#1}} in the preamble to change that. –  doncherry Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 17:18

Quick and dirty, using bibtex together with natbib :

• Thanks. It has worked. But why do we need to write all text within "" ? @Denis –  Yousaf Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 14:43
• 1 @ArslanYousaf Either that or {Name}, . –  Johannes_B Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 14:45

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