BibLaTeX-APA – Citing Dictionary Entries and Books with Separate Introduction Authors

apa-styleapa7biblatex

I am supposed to cite according to APA 7th reference style.

Dictionary entries: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/dictionary-entry-references (Number 1)

Book published with new foreword by another author: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/book-references (Number 4)

Necessary preamble:

\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[style=apa,sortcites=true,sorting=nyt,backend=biber]{biblatex}
\DeclareLanguageMapping{american}{american-apa}
\addbibresource{references.bib}

References.bib:

Dictionary entry:

@inreference{merriam-webster,
    title = {Semantics},
    url = {https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semantics},
    booktitle = {Merriam-Webster.com dictionary},
    editor = {Merriam-Webster},
    urldate = {2022-26-05},
}

The \parencite{merriam-webster} function gives the correct output for the in-text quotation. The problem is in the bibliography list. I tried to use author={{Merriam-Webster}}, but the In text seemed to disappear for some reason. Therefore the "editor" keyword did work, but now I have (Ed.) after the author which is not technically correct.

Output:

Book published with new foreword by another author entry:

@book{schumpeter_theory_1983,
    location = {New Brunswick, N.J},
    title = {The theory of economic development: an inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest, and the business cycle},
    isbn = {978-0-87855-698-4},
    url = {https://books.google.no/books?id=-OZwWcOGeOwC&printsec=frontcover&hl=no#v=onepage&q&f=false},
    pagetotal = {255},
    publisher = {Transaction Books},
    author = {Schumpeter, Joseph A.},
    date = {1983},
}

Output:

While the in-text citation is "(Schumpeter, 1983)". The book was originally published in 1934, but republished in 1983 with a new introduction by another author. This one is the hardest to manipulate to fit APA7 style as referred to above.

How can i manipulate the entries in order to confirm with the APA7 standards?

UPDATE:

I managed to add origyear = {1934} for the book bibliography entry, by adding the following code

\renewbibmacro*{date}{%
  \iffieldundef{origyear}{%
  }{%
    \setunit*{\addspace}%
    \printtext[brackets]{\printorigdate}%
  }%
}

The in-text citation now seems to be correct, but not sure how to add the author of the introduction section. I tried introduction = {Elliot, John E.} but it would not show up in the bibliography list.

Best Answer

biblatex-apa comes with an extensive example .bib file biblatex-apa-test-references.bib that contains all entries from the printed APA manual (at least as far as I know). So if you know the relevant APA rule, you are very likely to find all you need in there.

For the @inreference you were almost there. You need to use author instead of editor, though. It is not clear to me why this did not work for you in your first attempt, but I can assure you that with a current version of biblatex-apa (2021/12/24 v9.15) and biblatex (2022/02/02 v3.17) the code below produces the output shown. Note that there was a typo in the urldate: 2022-26-05 is not a valid date in YYYY-MM-DD format. You want urldate = {2022-05-26},.

For the @book you can use origdate to give the original year of publication. You use the biblatex-apa-specific field with for the with-authors.

There is no need to redefine any bibmacros. Additionally, you do not need the biblatex options sortcites=true,sorting=nyt, (sortcites is enabled by default if you use style=apa, and sorting=nyt, switches from APA specific sorting to generic name-year-title sorting). \DeclareLanguageMapping{american}{american-apa} has also not been needed for a few years.

\listfiles
\documentclass[american]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage[backend=biber, style=apa]{biblatex}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@inreference{merriam-webster,
  title     = {Semantics},
  url       = {https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semantics},
  booktitle = {Merriam-Webster.com dictionary},
  author    = {{Merriam-Webster}},
  urldate   = {2022-05-26},
}
@book{schumpeter_theory_1983,
  location  = {New Brunswick, N.J},
  title     = {The Theory of Economic Development:
               An Inquiry into Profits, Capital,
               Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle},
  isbn      = {978-0-87855-698-4},
  url       = {https://books.google.no/books?id=-OZwWcOGeOwC&printsec=frontcover&hl=no#v=onepage&q&f=false},
  pagetotal = {255},
  publisher = {Transaction Books},
  author    = {Schumpeter, Joseph A.},
  with      = {Elliot, John E.},
  date      = {1983},
  origdate  = {1934},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
Lorem \autocite{merriam-webster}
ipsum \autocite{schumpeter_theory_1983}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to cite an online dictionary entry in BibTeX

The best input™ will depend the output you expect and the bibliography style you use. While there is broad agreement in most available BibTeX styles about commonly cited types like @article, @book, @incollection, ... less common types (at the time BibTeX was written) – like online sources – or types not that often cited in STEM fields – like dictionary entries – are far less uniformly supported.

Most styles probably will not have a specific type for (online) dictionary entries. The following types would be obvious choices

@inreference. This is a biblatex type and I couldn't find any BibTeX style on my machine that supports it. In theory it would be a perfect fit, since @inreference is specifically intended to be used for entries in reference works like dictionaries. The biblatex standard styles treat @inreference pretty much like @incollection.

In biblatex you could use

@inreference{mw:abulia,
  author    = {Merriam-Webster},
  title     = {Abulia},
  booktitle = {Merriam-Webster.com dictionary},
  url       = {https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abulia},
  urldate   = {2020-07-08},
}
@inreference{oed:akrasia,
  title     = {akrasia, n.},
  booktitle = {OED Online},
  date      = {2020-06},
  publisher = {Oxford University Press},
  url       = {https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/240257?redirectedFrom=akrasia},
  urldate   = {2020-07-08},
}

@incollection. Most BibTeX styles will support this type. Semantically it is quite a good fit (as a generalisation of @inreference). The downside is that some styles may not expect a URL for types like this.

Slightly adapting the previous example (date -> year+month) we get
```
@incollection{mw:abulia,
  author    = {Merriam-Webster},
  title     = {Abulia},
  booktitle = {Merriam-Webster.com dictionary},
  url       = {https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abulia},
  urldate   = {2020-07-08},
}
@incollection{oed:akrasia,
  title     = {akrasia, n.},
  booktitle = {OED Online},
  year      = {2020},
  month     = jun,
  publisher = {Oxford University Press},
  url       = {https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/240257?redirectedFrom=akrasia},
  urldate   = {2020-07-08},
}
```
Note that most BibTeX styles don't support urldate and some even don't support url, so you may have to work around that with for example howpublished and note (though some BibTeX styles support a url field and a field like lastchecked; check out the documentation, experiment a bit or look at the .bst source directly to figure out what works).
@online. Many newer styles support a type like @online or @electronic. Often the type does not have fields like booktitle where you could put the dictionary name or publisher, so some creativity might be needed.
@misc. The last resort, but it should be available in all styles. Again, there generally isn't a lot of field structure here for booktitle/the dictionary name, so you have to cook up something that looks nice by (ab)using other fields.

One problem with dictionary entries is that they usually have no identifiable author, so the first question is whether or not you want to put the dictionary name as author or if you want to leave the author field empty. Many styles have no problem with missing author fields, but in some setups (natbib with authoryear option) a missing author could be an issue.

Another question is where you put the dictionary name if you use a generic type like @online or @misc, which generally only supports one type of title.

Just as one data point, here is what the standard biblatex style authoryear produces with @inreference.

\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage[style=authoryear, backend=biber]{biblatex}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@inreference{mw:abulia,
  author    = {Merriam-Webster},
  title     = {Abulia},
  booktitle = {Merriam-Webster.com dictionary},
  url       = {https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abulia},
  urldate   = {2020-07-08},
}
@inreference{oed:akrasia,
  title     = {akrasia, n.},
  booktitle = {OED Online},
  date      = {2020-06},
  publisher = {Oxford University Press},
  url       = {https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/240257?redirectedFrom=akrasia},
  urldate   = {2020-07-08},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}


\begin{document}
\autocite{mw:abulia,oed:akrasia}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

If you haven't used biblatex before, you may want to read biblatex in a nutshell (for beginners) and What to do to switch to biblatex? to see what you have to do to switch. Keep in mind that biblatex's default backend is Biber and not BibTeX, so ideally you would compile your document with Biber instead of BibTeX, see Biblatex with Biber: Configuring my editor to avoid undefined citations.

Here's what natbib makes from @incollections

\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage{natbib}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@incollection{mw:abulia,
  author    = {Merriam-Webster},
  title     = {Abulia},
  booktitle = {Merriam-Webster.com dictionary},
  year      = {n.d.},
  url       = {https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abulia},
  note      = {Retrieved 8 Jul. 2020},
}
@incollection{oed:akrasia,
  title     = {akrasia, n.},
  booktitle = {OED Online},
  year      = {2020},
  month     = jun,
  publisher = {Oxford University Press},
  url       = {https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/240257?redirectedFrom=akrasia},
  note      = {Retrieved 8 Jul. 2020},
}
\end{filecontents}


\begin{document}
\citep{mw:abulia,oed:akrasia}
\bibliographystyle{plainnat}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

Biblatex – Fixing Incorrect APA-7 Citation with Multiple Same Author/Year Entries

To correctly implement the APA-7 style it is important to set the parameter uniquelist=false:

\usepackage[style=apa, backend=biber, uniquelist=false]{biblatex}

If this option is used, the citations will be correctly formatted, only using the first author name and numbering the years:

Note that it is NOT sufficient to set the maxnames=1 or the likes, as uniquelist=true will override these parameters.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to cite an online dictionary entry in BibTeX

Biblatex – Fixing Incorrect APA-7 Citation with Multiple Same Author/Year Entries

Related Question