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6 <h1>About <em>bibtex</em></h1>
8 <p>JabRef helps you work with your
9 <em>bibtex</em> databases, but there are still rules to keep in
10 mind when editing your entries, to ensure that your database is
11 treated properly by the <em>bibtex</em> program.</p>
13 <h2><em>Bibtex</em> fields</h2>
15 <p>There is a lot of different
16 fields in <em>bibtex</em>, and some additional fields that you
17 can set in JabRef.</p>
19 <p>Generally, you can use LaTeX commands inside of fields
20 containing text. <em>Bibtex</em> will automatically format your
21 reference lists, and those fields that are included in the
22 lists will be (de)capitalized according to your bibliography
23 style. To ensure that certain characters remain capitalized,
24 enclose them in braces, like in the word {B}elgium.</p>
26 <p>Notes about some of the field types:</p>
29 <li><strong style="font-style: italic;">Bibtexkey</strong>
30 A unique string used to refer to the entry in LaTeX
31 documents. Note that when referencing an entry from LaTeX,
32 the key must match case-sensitively with the reference
36 <li><strong>address<br /></strong> Usually the address of
37 the <tt>publisher</tt> or other type of institution. For
38 major publishing houses, van Leunen recommends
39 omitting the information entirely. For small publishers, on
40 the other hand, you can help the reader by giving the
41 complete address.</li>
43 <li><strong>annote<br /></strong> An annotation. It is not
44 used by the standard bibliography styles, but may be used
45 by others that produce an annotated bibliography.</li>
47 <li><strong>author<br /></strong> This field should contain
48 the complete author list for your entry. The names are
49 separated by the word <em>and</em>, even if there are more
50 than two authors. Each name can be written in two
51 equivalent forms:<br />
52 Donald E. Knuth <em>or</em> Knuth, Donald E.<br />
53 Eddie van Halen <em>or</em> van Halen, Eddie<br />
54 The second form should be used for authors with more than
55 two names, to differentiate between middle names and last
59 <li><strong>booktitle<br /></strong> Title of a book, part
60 of which is being cited. For book entries, use the
61 <tt>title</tt> field instead.</li>
63 <li><strong>chapter<br /></strong> A chapter (or section or
64 whatever) number.</li>
66 <li><strong>crossref<br /></strong> The database key of the
67 entry being cross referenced.</li>
69 <li><strong>edition<br /></strong> The edition of a
70 book--for example, ``Second''. This should be an ordinal,
71 and should have the first letter capitalized, as shown
72 here; the standard styles convert to lower case when
75 <li><strong>editor<br /></strong> This field is analogue to
76 the <em>author</em> field. If there is also an
77 <tt>author</tt> field, then the <tt>editor</tt> field gives
78 the editor of the book or collection in which the reference
81 <li><strong>howpublished<br /></strong> How something
82 strange has been published. The first word should be
85 <li><strong>institution<br /></strong> The sponsoring
86 institution of a technical report.</li>
88 <li><strong>journal<br /></strong> A journal name. The name
89 of a journal can be abbreviated using a "string". To define
90 such string, use the <a href="StringEditorHelp.html">string
93 <li><strong>key<br /></strong> Used for alphabetizing,
94 cross referencing, and creating a label when the ``author''
95 information is missing. This field should not be confused
96 with the key that appears in the <code>\cite</code> command
97 and at the beginning of the database entry.</li>
99 <li><strong>month<br /></strong> The month in which the
100 work was published or, for an unpublished work, in which it
101 was written. You should use the standard three-letter
102 abbreviation (jan, feb, mar, apr, may, jun, jul, aug, sep,
105 <li><strong>note<br /></strong> Any additional information
106 that can help the reader. The first word should be
109 <li><strong>number</strong><br />
110 The number of a journal, magazine, technical report, or of
111 a work in a series. An issue of a journal or magazine is
112 usually identified by its volume and number; the
113 organization that issues a technical report usually gives
114 it a number; and sometimes books are given numbers in a
117 <li><strong>organization<br /></strong> The organization
118 that sponsors a conference or that publishes a manual.</li>
120 <li><strong>pages<br /></strong> One or more page numbers
121 or range of numbers, such as <tt>42-111</tt> or
122 <tt>7,41,73-97</tt> or <tt>43+</tt> (the `<tt>+</tt>' in
123 this last example indicates pages following that don't form
124 a simple range). To make it easier to maintain
125 <em>Scribe</em>-compatible databases, the standard styles
126 convert a single dash (as in <tt>7-33</tt>) to the double
127 dash used in TeX to denote number ranges (as in
130 <li><strong>publisher<br /></strong> The publisher's
133 <li><strong>school<br /></strong> The name of the school
134 where a thesis was written.</li>
136 <li><strong>series<br /></strong> The name of a series or
137 set of books. When citing an entire book, the
138 <tt>title</tt> field gives its title and an optional
139 <tt>series</tt> field gives the name of a series or
140 multi-volume set in which the book is published.</li>
142 <li><strong>title<br /></strong> The work's title. The
143 capitalization may depend on the bibliography style and on
144 the language used. For words that have to be capitalized
145 (such as a proper noun), enclose the word (or its first
146 letter) in braces.</li>
148 <li><strong>type<br /></strong> The type of a technical
149 report--for example, ``Research Note''.</li>
151 <li><strong>volume<br /></strong> The volume of a journal
152 or multivolume book.</li>
154 <li><strong>year<br /></strong> The year of publication or,
155 for an unpublished work, the year it was written. Generally
156 it should consist of four numerals, such as <tt>1984</tt>,
157 although the standard styles can handle any <tt>year</tt>
158 whose last four nonpunctuation characters are numerals,
159 such as `(about 1984)'. This field is required for most
164 <h2>Other fields</h2>
166 <p>BibTeX is extremely popular, and many
167 people have used it to store information. Here is a list of
168 some of the more common fields:</p>
172 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
173 affiliation*</span><br /></strong> The authors
177 <li><strong>abstract<br /></strong> An abstract of the
181 <li><strong>doi<br /></strong> The Digital Object
182 Identifier, a permanent identifier given to
186 <li><strong>eid<br /></strong> The Electronic identifier is
187 for electronic journals that also appear in print. This
188 number replaces the page number, and is used to find the
189 article within the printed volume. Sometimes also called
190 <em>citation number</em>.<br />
194 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
195 contents*</span><br /></strong> A Table of Contents<br />
199 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
200 copyright*</span><br /></strong> Copyright
205 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
206 ISBN*</span><br /></strong> The International Standard Book
211 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
212 ISSN*</span><br /></strong> The International Standard
213 Serial Number. Used to identify a journal.<br />
216 <li><strong>keywords<br /></strong> Key words used for
217 searching or possibly for annotation.<br />
221 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
222 language*</span><br /></strong> The language the document
227 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
228 location*</span><br /></strong> A location associated with
229 the entry, such as the city in which a conference took
234 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
235 LCCN*</span><br /></strong> The Library of Congress Call
236 Number. I've also seen this as <tt>lib-congress</tt>.<br />
240 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
241 mrnumber*</span><br /></strong> The <i>Mathematical
242 Reviews</i> number.<br />
246 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
247 price*</span><br /></strong> The price of the
252 <strong><span style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;">
253 size*</span><br /></strong> The physical dimensions of a
257 <li><strong>URL<br /></strong> The WWW Universal Resource
258 Locator that points to the item being referenced. This
259 often is used for technical reports to point to the ftp
260 site where the postscript source of the report is
267 <li><strong>urldate<br /></strong> The date of the last
270 *) not direct supported by JabRef<br />