Entry types
16.1.1 Entry types
A bibliographic entry is given in pieces called fields. The style (see Section 16.2.2) specifies how these fields are typeset. Here are two typical entries:
@BOOK{gM68, author = "George A. Menuhin", title = "Universal Algebra", publisher = "D.~Van Nostrand", address = "Princeton", year = 1968, }
424 Chapter 16 B IB TEX @ARTICLE{eM57,
author = "Ernest T. Moynahan", title = "On a Problem of {M. Stone}", journal = "Acta Math. Acad. Sci. Hungar.", pages = "455-460", volume = 8, year = 1957, }
The start of an entry is indicated with an at sign (@) followed by the entry type. In the first example, the entry type is BOOK, while in the second, it is ARTICLE. The entry type is followed by a left brace ({). The matching right brace (}) indicates the end of the
entry. B IB TEX also allows you to use parentheses as delimiters for an entry. In this book, however, we use braces to enclose an entry. The string @BOOK{ is followed by a label, gM68, which designates the name of the entry. Refer to this entry in your document with \cite{gM68}. The label is followed by a comma and a series of fields. In this example, there are five fields, author, title, publisher, address, and year. Each field starts with the field name, followed by = and the value of the field enclosed in double quotes ("). Be sure to use " and not
L A TEX double quotes (‘‘ or ’’). Alternatively, B IB TEX also allows you to use braces to
enclose the field value. In this book, we use double quotes to enclose a field.
Numeric field values, that is, fields consisting entirely of digits, do not need to be enclosed in double quotes or braces, for instance, year in the examples above, volume in the second example, and number in some of the examples that follow. Page ranges, such as 455-460, are not numeric field values since they contain -, so they must be enclosed in double quotes or braces.
There must be a comma before each field. The comma before the first field is placed after the label. There are many standard entry types, including
ARTICLE an article in a journal or magazine BOOK a book with an author (or editor) and a publisher BOOKLET a printed work without a publisher INBOOK a part of a book, such as a chapter or a page range that, in general, is not titled
or authored separately INCOLLECTION a part of a book with its own title and perhaps author INPROCEEDINGS an article in a conference proceedings with its own title and
author MANUAL technical documentation
16.1 The database 425
MASTERSTHESIS a master’s thesis MISC an entry that does not fit in any other category PHDTHESIS a Ph.D. thesis PROCEEDINGS the proceedings of a conference TECHREPORT a report published by a school or institution UNPUBLISHED an unpublished paper Each entry includes a number of fields from the following list:
howpublished organization year
The style you choose determines which of the fields within an entry are actually used. All the others are ignored. You may also add fields for your own use. For example, you may want to add a mycomments field for personal comments. Such fields are ignored unless you have a bibliography style that uses them.
Commonly used examples of new field names include URL, abstract, ISBN, keywords, mrnumber, and so on. The language field is used by the AMS styles but not by any of the other styles mentioned in this chapter.
Tip
1. B IB TEX does not care whether you use uppercase or lowercase letters (or mixed) for the names of entry types and fields. In this book, the entry types are shown in uppercase and field names in lowercase.
2. Placing a comma after the last field is optional. I recommend that you put it there so that when you append a new field to the entry, the required comma separating the fields is present.
For each entry type there are both required and optional fields. Later in this sec- tion, I give two examples of each entry type. The first example of an entry type uses a small set of fields, while the second example is a maximal one, showing a large number of optional fields.
426 Chapter 16 B IB TEX