[Tex/LaTex] How to modify apalike.bst to have a colon (:) instead of period (.) after “author (year)”

apa-stylebibtex

I already modified apalike.bst to some of my needs, but I can't find this one — which part do I have to change to have it include a colon after "author (year)" instead of a period .?

(I am using bibtex but not biblatex.)

Best Answer

apalike.bst adds a period before outputting \newblock. So a way can be changing the function output.year.check into

FUNCTION {output.year.check}
{ year empty$
    { "empty year in " cite$ * warning$ }
    { write$
      " (" year * extra.label * ")\addcolonandeatperiod" *
      mid.sentence 'output.state :=
    }
  if$
}

along with

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\addcolonandeatperiod}{\@ifnextchar.{:\@gobble}\relax}
\makeatother

in your document preamble. There may be more efficient ways.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to suppress insertion of letter labels after year for references from the same year

Find the file apalike.bst in your TeX distribution (likely in a spot such as .../bibtex/bst/apalike, where ... is a root directory of the TeX distribution), make a copy of it and name the copy, say, my-apalike.bst. Open the new file in an editor of your choice and search for the function FUNCTION {output.year.check} (probably starting around line 120 of the file). In this function, locate the line:

    " (" year * extra.label * ")" *

Remove the substring extra.label *. I.e., the line should now read as follows:

      " (" year * ")" *

Save the file (either to your current working directory or in some directory that's searched by TeX's filename database operations, and update the TeX filename database if necessary) and be sure to use the instruction

\bibliographystyle{my-apalike}

from now on.

[Tex/LaTex] BibTeX: How to get rid of a period after author initial

Thanks for posting the link to the .bst file. From an examination of the function format.names and some of the other main syntax blocks, it would appear that (i) the style file is programmed to expect that full first names, rather than just initials, are provided for all authors and (ii) a "dot" (.) is inserted between all blocks of the bib entry.

You have two options at this stage -- other than engaging in a major rewrite of parts of the .bst file:

change the entry's name field to author = "Beekman, George"
change the entry's name field to author = "Beekman, G" -- no trailing dot (because the style file will furnish the dot for you)

Personally, I would recommend you pursue the former option. While it's more work up front, there are two benefits as well: (a) you'll be in full compliance with the style of whatever journal is making you use the bibgen bibliography style, possibly earning you Brownie points with the journal editors :-), and (b) you'll only have to do this once. And, should you decide in the future to submit a paper to some other journal that also expects that full first names are provided for authors and editors, you'll be all-set.

For your reference, here's what the typeset entry looks like if the author's first name is entered as "George" (by the way, which language renders "February" as "únor"?):

enter image description here

\RequirePackage{filecontents}
\documentclass{article}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@ARTICLE{historie_kniha,
   author = {Beekman, George},
    title = "{I. O. Yarkovsky and the Discovery of `his' Effect}",
  journal = {Journal for the History of Astronomy},
     year = 2006,
    month = feb,
   volume = 37,
    pages = {71-86},
   adsurl = {http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006JHA....37...71B},
  adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\bibliographystyle{bibgen}
\begin{document}
\cite{historie_kniha}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

Best Answer

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[Tex/LaTex] How to suppress insertion of letter labels after year for references from the same year

[Tex/LaTex] BibTeX: How to get rid of a period after author initial

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