[Tex/LaTex] Controlling abbreviation of author names list using natbib

Question

I am using the natbib package with the aspr style.

The command \citep{key} prints "(Smith et al., 2011)" if the number of authors is more than 3. How can I change it so that it uses the "et al." abbreviation if the number of names is greater than 2?

Answer 1

Copy the file apsr.bst to your working directory and rename it to, say, myapsr.bst. In the renamed copy, look for FUNCTION {format.lab.names.abbr} and here for the code line

    { numnames #3 >

Replace this line with

    { numnames #2 >

and compile your .tex file using \bibliographystyle{myapsr}.