1 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
3 <body style="color: rgb(39, 88, 86);">
8 <h1>About <em>bibtex</em></h1>
10 <p>JabRef helps you work with your
11 <em>bibtex</em> databases, but there are still rules to keep in
12 mind when editing your entries, to ensure that your database is
13 treated properly by the <em>bibtex</em> program.</p>
15 <h2><em>Bibtex</em> fields</h2>
17 <p>There is a lot of different
18 fields in <em>bibtex</em>, and some additional fields that you
19 can set in JabRef.</p>
21 <p>Generally, you can use LaTeX commands inside of fields
22 containing text. <em>Bibtex</em> will automatically format your
23 reference lists, and those fields that are included in the
24 lists will be (de)capitalized according to your bibliography
25 style. To ensure that certain characters remain capitalized,
26 enclose them in braces, like in the word {B}elgium.</p>
28 <p>Notes about some of the field types:</p>
31 <li><strong style="font-style: italic;">Bibtexkey</strong>
32 A unique string used to refer to the entry in LaTeX
33 documents. Note that when referencing an entry from LaTeX,
34 the key must match case-sensitively with the reference
38 <li><strong>address<br></strong> Usually the address of
39 the <tt>publisher</tt> or other type of institution. For
40 major publishing houses, van Leunen recommends
41 omitting the information entirely. For small publishers, on
42 the other hand, you can help the reader by giving the
43 complete address.</li>
45 <li><strong>annote<br></strong> An annotation. It is not
46 used by the standard bibliography styles, but may be used
47 by others that produce an annotated bibliography.</li>
49 <li><strong>author<br></strong> This field should contain
50 the complete author list for your entry. The names are
51 separated by the word <em>and</em>, even if there are more
52 than two authors. Each name can be written in two
54 Donald E. Knuth <em>or</em> Knuth, Donald E.<br>
55 Eddie van Halen <em>or</em> van Halen, Eddie<br>
56 The second form should be used for authors with more than
57 two names, to differentiate between middle names and last
61 <li><strong>booktitle<br></strong> Title of a book, part
62 of which is being cited. For book entries, use the
63 <tt>title</tt> field instead.</li>
65 <li><strong>chapter<br></strong> A chapter (or section or
66 whatever) number.</li>
68 <li><strong>crossref<br></strong> The database key of the
69 entry being cross referenced.</li>
71 <li><strong>edition<br></strong> The edition of a
72 book--for example, ``Second''. This should be an ordinal,
73 and should have the first letter capitalized, as shown
74 here; the standard styles convert to lower case when
77 <li><strong>editor<br></strong> This field is analogue to
78 the <em>author</em> field. If there is also an
79 <tt>author</tt> field, then the <tt>editor</tt> field gives
80 the editor of the book or collection in which the reference
83 <li><strong>howpublished<br></strong> How something
84 strange has been published. The first word should be
87 <li><strong>institution<br></strong> The sponsoring
88 institution of a technical report.</li>
90 <li><strong>journal<br></strong> A journal name. The name
91 of a journal can be abbreviated using a "string". To define
92 such string, use the <a href="StringEditorHelp.html">string
95 <li><strong>key<br></strong> Used for alphabetizing,
96 cross referencing, and creating a label when the ``author''
97 information is missing. This field should not be confused
98 with the key that appears in the <code>\cite</code> command
99 and at the beginning of the database entry.</li>
101 <li><strong>month<br></strong> The month in which the
102 work was published or, for an unpublished work, in which it
103 was written. You should use the standard three-letter
104 abbreviation (jan, feb, mar, apr, may, jun, jul, aug, sep,
107 <li><strong>note<br></strong> Any additional information
108 that can help the reader. The first word should be
111 <li><strong>number</strong><br>
112 The number of a journal, magazine, technical report, or of
113 a work in a series. An issue of a journal or magazine is
114 usually identified by its volume and number; the
115 organization that issues a technical report usually gives
116 it a number; and sometimes books are given numbers in a
119 <li><strong>organization<br></strong> The organization
120 that sponsors a conference or that publishes a manual.</li>
122 <li><strong>pages<br></strong> One or more page numbers
123 or range of numbers, such as <tt>42-111</tt> or
124 <tt>7,41,73-97</tt> or <tt>43+</tt> (the `<tt>+</tt>' in
125 this last example indicates pages following that don't form
126 a simple range). To make it easier to maintain
127 <em>Scribe</em>-compatible databases, the standard styles
128 convert a single dash (as in <tt>7-33</tt>) to the double
129 dash used in TeX to denote number ranges (as in
132 <li><strong>publisher<br></strong> The publisher's
135 <li><strong>school<br></strong> The name of the school
136 where a thesis was written.</li>
138 <li><strong>series<br></strong> The name of a series or
139 set of books. When citing an entire book, the
140 <tt>title</tt> field gives its title and an optional
141 <tt>series</tt> field gives the name of a series or
142 multi-volume set in which the book is published.</li>
144 <li><strong>title<br></strong> The work's title. The
145 capitalization may depend on the bibliography style and on
146 the language used. For words that have to be capitalized
147 (such as a proper noun), enclose the word (or its first
148 letter) in braces.</li>
150 <li><strong>type<br></strong> The type of a technical
151 report--for example, ``Research Note''.</li>
153 <li><strong>volume<br></strong> The volume of a journal
154 or multivolume book.</li>
156 <li><strong>year<br></strong> The year of publication or,
157 for an unpublished work, the year it was written. Generally
158 it should consist of four numerals, such as <tt>1984</tt>,
159 although the standard styles can handle any <tt>year</tt>
160 whose last four nonpunctuation characters are numerals,
161 such as `(about 1984)'. This field is required for most
166 <h2>Other fields</h2>
168 <p>BibTeX is extremely popular, and many
169 people have used it to store information. Here is a list of
170 some of the more common fields:</p>
174 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
175 affiliation*</span><br></strong> The authors
179 <li><strong>abstract<br></strong> An abstract of the
183 <li><strong>doi<br></strong> The Digital Object
184 Identifier, a permanent identifier given to
188 <li><strong>eid<br></strong> The Electronic identifier is
189 for electronic journals that also appear in print. This
190 number replaces the page number, and is used to find the
191 article within the printed volume. Sometimes also called
192 <em>citation number</em>.<br>
196 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
197 contents*</span><br></strong> A Table of Contents<br />
201 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
202 copyright*</span><br></strong> Copyright
207 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
208 ISBN*</span><br></strong> The International Standard Book
213 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
214 ISSN*</span><br></strong> The International Standard
215 Serial Number. Used to identify a journal.<br>
218 <li><strong>keywords<br></strong> Key words used for
219 searching or possibly for annotation.<br>
223 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
224 language*</span><br></strong> The language the document
229 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
230 location*</span><br></strong> A location associated with
231 the entry, such as the city in which a conference took
236 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
237 LCCN*</span><br></strong> The Library of Congress Call
238 Number. I've also seen this as <tt>lib-congress</tt>.<br>
242 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
243 mrnumber*</span><br></strong> The <i>Mathematical
244 Reviews</i> number.<br>
248 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
249 price*</span><br></strong> The price of the
254 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
255 size*</span><br></strong> The physical dimensions of a
259 <li><strong>URL<br></strong> The WWW Universal Resource
260 Locator that points to the item being referenced. This
261 often is used for technical reports to point to the ftp
262 site where the postscript source of the report is
269 <li><strong>urldate<br></strong> The date of the last
272 *) not direct supported by JabRef<br>