With BibTeX and the harvard/AGSM style, some references (from authors who have multiple papers per year) aren't abbreviated to "et al.", with the addition of a
, b
, et cetera. For example, with the code attached below, I get:
Only one paper is abbreviated to et al., the others not. Any idea why this is happening? The in-text references should be Basu et al. (2008a) and Basu et al. (2008b), which I believe AGSM should automatically do?
\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{natbib}
\begin{document}
\cite{basu2008a, basu2008b, beare2006}
\bibliographystyle{agsm}
\bibliography{references.bib}
\end{document}
With BibTeX file (references.bib
):
@string{jam="J. Appl. Meteor."}
@string{ag="Acta Geop."}
@string{blm="Bound.-Layer Meteor."}
@article{basu2008a,
author={Basu, S. and Vinuesa, J.-F. and Swift, A.},
title={Dynamic {LES} modeling of a diurnal cycle},
journal=jam,
year={2008},
volume={47},
number={4},
pages={1156-1174}
}
@article{basu2008b,
author={Basu, S. and Holtslag, A. A. M. and Wiel, B. J. H. and Moene, A. F. and Steeneveld, G. J.},
title={An inconvenient "truth" about using sensible heat flux as a surface boundary condition in models under stably stratified regimes},
year={2008},
journal=ag,
volume={56},
number={1},
pages={88-99}
}
@ARTICLE{beare2006,
author={Beare,R. J. and Macvean,M. K. and Holtslag,A. A. M. and Cuxart,J. and Esau,I. and Golaz,J. -. and Jimenez,M. A. and Khairoutdinov,M. and Kosovic,B. and Lewellen,D. and Lund,T. S. and Lundquist,J. K. and McCabe,A. and Moene,A. F. and Noh,Y. and Raasch,S. and Sullivan,P.},
title={An intercomparison of large-eddy simulations of the stable boundary layer},
journal=blm,
year={2006},
volume={118},
number={2},
pages={247-272}
}
Best Answer
You've come across an unusual -- and admittedly rather severely under-documented -- feature (not a bug...) of the
agsm
bibliography style. Suppose two bib items labelled, say,AA
andBB
each have one or more authors. Crucially, suppose the total number of authors differs -- e.g., let bibitemAA
have 3 authors and bibitemBB
have 5 authors -- and suppose further thatAA
andBB
share the same first author (say,XYZ
) and the same publication year (say,2000
).When this occurs -- as is the case in the example you've posted -- the
agsm
bibliography style does not set the citation call-outs asXYZ et al (2000a)
andXYZ et al. (2000b)
, respectively. Instead, it lists all author names for both publications.I suppose this is a fail-safe way of avoiding any kind of confusion over whose publication might be cited as
XYZ et al. (2000a)
.The only time when you do get the
FirstAuthor et al (year)
citation call-out pattern is if (a) the two publications have the same authors (and thus the same number of authors) as well as the same publication year and (b) there is no other three-or-more-author publication in the bibliography that features the same first author and publication year.Again, this feature of the
agsm
style is both uncommon (to put it neutrally) and, unfortunately, quite obscure and under-documented. I wouldn't call it a bug, though. If you truly can't stand this feature, it's probably a good idea to start looking for an alternative bibliography style.An MWE and screenshot: