I would like to cite entries from Merriam Webster online dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary online. Neither offers a BiBTeX format. The citation that MW suggests looks like this:
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Abulia. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary.
Retrieved July 8, 2020, from
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abulia
The OED suggests this format (in Chicago style)
"akrasia, n.". OED Online. June 2020. Oxford University Press.
https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/240257?redirectedFrom=akrasia (accessed
July 08, 2020).
How can I enter these into a BiBTeX file and cite them in my work? Or, should I switch to BiBLaTeX and, if so, how?
Best Answer
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 abiblatex
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. Thebiblatex
standard styles treat@inreference
pretty much like@incollection
.In
biblatex
you could use@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 getNote that most BibTeX styles don't support
urldate
and some even don't supporturl
, so you may have to work around that with for examplehowpublished
andnote
(though some BibTeX styles support aurl
field and a field likelastchecked
; 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 likebooktitle
where you could put the dictionary name orpublisher
, 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 forbooktitle
/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 theauthor
field empty. Many styles have no problem with missingauthor
fields, but in some setups (natbib
withauthoryear
option) a missingauthor
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
styleauthoryear
produces with@inreference
.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 thatbiblatex
'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@incollection
s