A Short Guide to Reference Management using natbib with BibTeX
The natbib package adds new features to the standard \cite{*}
command in LaTeX that includes in-text citations with various options and customizations, especially for author-year schemes and displaying the textual and parenthetical when using BibTeX.
It is worth noting that the package is compatible with both author-year and numerical citations and with the standard bibliography *.bst
files.
This article explains how to use natbib to format and cite bibliographic sources.
Getting started: Using Parenthetical and Textual/Narrative In-Text Citations with natbib
We specify a minimal structure, similar to the one discussed in the previous section. To do this, we load the library with \usepackage{natbib}
. The library provides options that can be passed via \usepackagee[options]{{natbib}
, which we cover later. The basic citation commands in Natbib are \citet{*}
for textual/narrative citations and \citep{*}
for parenthetical citations.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{apalike}
\title{A Short Guide to Reference Management using natbib with BibTeX}
\author{CiteDrive}
\date {January 1988}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\textbf{Narrative citation:} \citet{Doe:1966} investigated the risks of incorrectly \\
recorded [...], which results in distortion.
\textbf{Parenthetical citation:} The risks of incorrect recording of [...] could lead to distortion
\citep{Doe:1966}.
\medskip
\bibliography{sample}
\end{document}
With \bibliography{sample}
we refer to our .bib-file, which contains two sample entries:
@article{Doe:1966,
title = {Study on the risks of incorrectly recorded [...] and their impact on [...].},
author = {John Doe},
year = 1966,
journal = {BibTeX Publishing},
volume = 44,
number = 44,
pages = {123--456}
}
@article{smith201X,
title = {An interesting article},
author = {John Smith},
year = {201X},
journal = {Journal of Interesting Articles}
}
An example that natbib works wonderfully with numeric citation styles; let's change the corresponding commands of the code above:
\usepackage[square,numbers]{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{abbrvnat}
cite{*}
commands provided by natbib
The following table summarizes the differences between the commands, based on cite{*}
, and what you might expect to see. Both numeric and author-year styles are included, as well as multiple citations.
As we subsequently discover, we should note that some examples are not chosen sensibly: Hardly ever will two different sources share one chapter. \citet*{...}
lists all authors without et. al. Nevertheless, the table should offer a solid understanding of how the commands behave.
Command (single citation) | Output (author-year) | Output (Numeric) | Command (Multiple citations) | Output (author-year) | Output (Numeric) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
\citet{Doe:1966} | Doe (1966) | Doe [1] | \citet{Doe:1966,smith201X} | Doe (1966); Smith (201X) | Doe [1], Smith [2] |
\citet[chap.~4]{Doe:1966} | Doe (1966, chap. 4) | Doe [1, chap. 4] | \citet[chap.~4]{Doe:1966,smith201X} | Doe (1966); Smith (201X, chap. 4) | Doe [1], Smith [2, chap. 4] |
\citep{Doe:1966} | (Doe, 1966) | [1] | \citep{Doe:1966,smith201X} | (Doe, 1966; Smith, 201X) | [1, 2 |
\citep[chap.~4]{Doe:1966} | (Doe, 1966, chap. 4) | [1, chap. 4 | \citep[chap.~4]{Doe:1966,smith201X} | (Doe, 1966; Smith, 201X, chap. 4) | 1, 2, chap. 4] |
\citep[see][]{Doe:1966} | (see Doe, 1966) | [see 1] | \citep[see][]{Doe:1966,smith201X} | (see Doe, 1966; Smith, 201X) | [see 1, 2] |
\citep[see][chap.~4]{Doe:1966} | (see Doe, 1966, chap. 4) | [see 1, chap. 4] | \citep[see][chap.~4]{Doe:1966,smith201X} | (see Doe, 1966; Smith, 201X, chap. 4) | [see 1, 2, chap. 4] |
\citet*{Doe:1966} | Doe (1966) | Doe [1] | \citet*{Doe:1966,smith201X} | Doe (1966); Smith (201X) | Doe [1], Smith [2] |
\citep*{Doe:1966} | (Doe, 1966) | [1] | \citep*{Doe:1966,smith201X} | (Doe, 1966; Smith, 201X) | [1, 2] |
Other options are, for example, suppressed brackets with \citealp
and \citealt
corresponding to the commands \citep
and \citet
. With \citeauthor
one can suppress the year, and with \citeyear
the authors. Further commands and options around \cite
in natbib can be found in the Reference sheet for natbib usage [PDF]: https://gking.harvard.edu/files/natnotes2.pdf
Appendix
Options for natbib
The following are the options that can be declared via \usepackagee[options]{{natbib}
:
Option | Description |
---|---|
round | displays round parentheses |
square | displays square brackets |
curly | displays curly braces |
angle | displays angle braces |
semicolon | multiple citations are separated by semicolons |
colon | same as semicolon |
comma | multiple citations are separated by coma |
authoryear | display author-year citations |
numbers | display numerical citations |
super | displays superscript numbers for numerical citations |
sort | sorts multiple citations in order of references displayed in bibliography. |
compress | sorting and multiple numerical citations are compressed where appropriate |
sort&compress | multiple numerical citations are compressed where appropriate |
longnamesfirst | the full name of the author appears in the first citation |
sectionbib | redefines \thebibliography to output \section instead of \chapter |
nonamebreak | Displays all author names of a citation in one line |
Sources
- Bibliography management with natbib via Overleaf
- Natbib bibliography styles via Overleaf
- Reference sheet for natbib usage [PDF]: https://gking.harvard.edu/files/natnotes2.pdf