BibTeX Format explained

BibTeX actually has a double meaning in connection with software and formatting. On the one hand, the term refers to Oren Patashnik’s software that handles the bibliographic formatting for LaTeX. On the other hand, it refers to the bibliographic information stored in a .bib file, also known as a BibTeX file. This duality makes it clear that BibTeX is both a formatting tool and a file format for storing bibliographic data. Even with regard to examples in LaTeX, where more modern options such as Natbib and the completely new implementation BibLaTeX exist, people continue to rely on the original format. The same applies to most modern scientific editors and writing environments such as Quarto, R Markdown and Pandoc. The simplicity and readability of the text file format contribute to its widespread use as an indexing standard and are reasons why platforms such as CiteDrive rely exclusively on the BibTeX format. In the following section, we will look at the basics.

Structure of a BibTeX Entry:

A BibTeX entry has the following basic structure:

@DocumentType{CitationKey,
    Field1 = {Value1},
    Field2 = {Value2},
    ...
    FieldN = {ValueN}
}

DocumentType: The type of the bibliographic entry (e.g., article, book, inproceedings).
CitationKey: A unique key used for referencing in the LaTeX document (or R Markdown or Quarto, etc.).
Field1, Field2, …, FieldN: Various fields containing specific information such as author, title, year, etc.
Value1, Value2, …, ValueN: The corresponding values for the fields.

Example:

A simple article entry could look like this:

@article{Smith2000,
    author = {John Smith},
    title = {The Importance of BibTeX},
    journal = {Journal of LaTeX},
    year = {2000},
}

In this example:

@article: The document type is “article.”
Smith2000: The citation key is “Smith2000.”
author, title, journal, year: The fields contain the corresponding information.

This entry could then be referenced in the LaTeX document, for example, with \cite{Smith2000}. More on that later.

@article{entry1, ...}
@book{entry2, ...}
...
@book{entryn, ...}

General Notes

Entering Multiple Authors and Companies/Organizations

When entering multiple authors, separate them with and. For example, for authors Derek Edwards, Gareth Bilaney, and Alexander Kirchhof:

@article{key,
    author = {Derek Edwards and Gareth Bilaney and Alexander Kirchhof}
}

For companies or names that should be fully displayed in the bibliography, enclose them in double curly braces \{{...}}.

@article{key,
    author = {{ CiteDrive INC }}
}

Finally, note that author names can be declared as either {First Name Last Name} or {Last Name, First Name}.

BibTeX Entry Types:

@article:
- Required: author, title, journal, year
- Optional: volume, number, pages, month, note
@book:
- Required: author or editor, title, publisher, year
- Optional: volume or number, series, address, edition, month, note, isbn
@inproceedings:
- Required: author, title, booktitle, year
- Optional: editor, volume or number, series, pages, address, month, organization, publisher, note
@inbook:
- Required: author or editor, title, chapter or pages, publisher, year
- Optional: volume or number, series, type, address, edition, month, note
@proceedings:
- Required: title, year
- Optional: editor, volume or number, series, pages, address, month, organization, publisher, note
@techreport:
- Required: author, title, institution, year
- Optional: type, number, address, month, note
@manual:
- Required: title
- Optional: author, organization, address, edition, month, year, note
@thesis:
- Required: author, title, school, year
- Optional: type, address, month, note
@mastersthesis:
- Same as @thesis
@phdthesis:

Same as @thesis

@misc:
- Required: none
- Optional: author, title, howpublished, month, year, note
@unpublished:
- Required: author, title, note
- Optional: month, year

BibLaTeX Entry Types:

@article:
- Same as BibTeX @article
@book:
- Same as BibTeX @book
@inproceedings:
- Same as BibTeX @inproceedings
@inbook:
- Same as BibTeX @inbook
@proceedings:
- Same as BibTeX @proceedings
@online:
- Required: author or editor, title, year or date
- Optional: subtitle, language, version, note, organization, url, urldate
@thesis:
- Same as BibTeX @thesis
@masterthesis:
- Same as BibTeX @masterthesis
@phdthesis:
- Same as BibTeX @phdthesis
@misc:
- Required: none
- Optional: author, title, howpublished, month, year, note
@unpublished:
- Same as BibTeX @unpublished
@collection:
- Required: editor, title, year
- Optional: publisher, volume or number, series, address, edition, month, note
@incollection:
- Required: author, title, booktitle, year
- Optional: editor, volume or number, series, type, chapter, pages, address, edition, month, note
@manual:
- Same as BibTeX @manual
@report:
- Required: author, title, institution, year
- Optional: type, number, address, month, note
@conference:
- Same as BibTeX @inproceedings
@techreport:
- Same as BibTeX @techreport
@patent:
- Required: author or holder, title, year
- Optional: type, number, version, month, note
@booklet:
- Required: title
- Optional: author, howpublished, address, month, year, note
@inreference:
- Required: title
- Optional: author, publisher, year, edition, month, note
@mvbook (multi-volume book):
- Required: editor, title, year
- Optional: publisher, volume or number, series, address, edition, month, note
@mvcollection (multi-volume collection):
- Same as @collection
@mvproceedings (multi-volume proceedings):
- Same as @proceedings
@mvinbook (multi-volume inbook):
- Same as @inbook
@mvreference (multi-volume reference):
- Same as @inreference
@reference:
- Required: title, year
- Optional: editor, publisher, address, edition, month, note