BibTeX (natbib)

The much praised reference program BibTeX is an essential part of all academic LaTeX work. It took me some time to understand what it does. You should keep the following sequens in mind:

• First you process an .aux file from you .tex text using LaTeX (i.e. compile > LaTeX)
• That thing is full of code you need to parse through BibTeX to turn the reference fields into references (i.e. compile > BibTeX)
• Doing each step twice may be a good idea to get cross references right
• Next, you parse again using LaTeX
• Finally, you parse the whole thing using pdfLaTeX, to get a pdf (it's a miracle...)

You will agree with me that this is a very cumbersome operation. It is one of the reasons I would recommend using Zotero with a word processor plugin, if you don't really need LaTeX.

But it gets worse. This is how you set up your .tex file.

• In the preamble, so before \begin{document}, you need to load the BibTeX package. The old and safe way is \usepackage{natbib}. It seems there is a new and more flexible BibTeX connection called biblatex. So you heard it right: natbib won't let you make bibliographies for chapter, for example. Whence the praise, I wouldn't know.
• Also in the preamble, although some write it elsewhere, you need to mention the bibliography style. It is \bibliographystyle{plainnat}. In some sciences, this is just plain, and for some journals this will be a specific style. You can't modify this, as the .sty files with the definition are very hard to decypher. LaTeX guys would say: 'Why would you?' Honestly, because I like simple languages. I use Stata instead of SAS, and that's why.
• Obviously, in the standard format, you'll want your bibliography at the end. That's where you'll have it, just type \bibliography{library path}. Library path may be just the name of the library if it's in the same folder, but if you have a copy of your Zotero or Mendeley library at a fixed place, you should give the full path, and beware not to have spaces in it. Also, change backslash for slashes. Usability, you know?

Having gone through all that, you may want to start quoting. Luckily, that's the good part. You need not click any buttons, just type \cite{ and you have a list of labels to choose from. The handy thing is the AutoZotBib plugin for Zotero simply labels entries with the name of the first author, the first word of the title and the year. So it's pretty easy to call in your references. There's a few elegant options to quote:

• \citep{ : this numbers references, if you like that. If you care less about names, do it wiki-style.
• \citeauthor{ : obviously, you'll just get the author
• \citeyear{ : well... you get it

So in sum, it's a pain in the ass, but it works.

One note: you may have weird characters in your references, like Swedish names. You know that LaTeX is English based so you may go down because of your Swedish friends. I haven't really figured out yet, I will in time, but maybe some fontpackage, such as \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}, may help you out. Good Lord, this ain't how it was meant to be.

Good luck referencing!