apa-styleauthor-numbernatbib
I am using the article document class and the natbib package. When I cite 3 or more authors, this is shown as FirstAuthor et al. I want to change this such that when I have one, two or three authors, all their names are shown in text, while if I have 4 or more authors, this would then be shown as FirstAuthor et al.
Is there a simple way to change the truncation of authors?
Since you're submitting a paper to a journal that has certain formatting requirements for the paper's bibliography (and lots of other aspects of the paper too, no doubt!), you should ask (if you haven't already done so) for a BibTeX bibliography style (.bst) file that implements the journal's requirements. With any luck, this .bst file will be compatible with natbib and also implement the journal's house style (of making you cite the names of all authors of pieces that have three or fewer authors).
If you're not that lucky, there are three possibilities. First, if the .bst file is not compatible with natbib, you're obviously out of luck. (Fortunately, though, natbib is enormously robust and works with the overwhelming majority of .bst files.) Second, if the .bst file is compatible with natbib but does not contain a function called format.lab.names, you're also out of luck. That's what's meant, basically, by the statement in natbib's manual that "starred [citation command] versions can only list the full authors if the .bst file supports this feature." (Of course, such a .bst file must also provide a few functions that call the format.lab.names function...)
Third, if the .bst file does contain such a function but doesn't implement the journal's house style, i.e., if the \cite[pt]* macros output Adams et~al. for a piece that has exactly three authors (and the first author's surname is "Adams"...), you are not out of luck. All you need to do is to replace the existing format.lab.names function with one that does obey the journal's house style. The existing format.lab.names function should (more or less...) look like:
FUNCTION {format.lab.names}
{ 's :=
"" 't :=
s #1 "{vv~}{ll}" format.name$
s num.names$ duplicate$
#2 >
{ pop$
" " * bbl.etal *
}
{ #2 <
'skip$
{ s #2 "{ff }{vv }{ll}{ jj}" format.name$ "others" =
{
" " * bbl.etal *
}
{ bbl.and space.word * s #2 "{vv~}{ll}" format.name$
* }
if$
}
if$
}
if$
}
You should replace this code with the following code:
FUNCTION {format.lab.names}
{'s :=
"" 't :=
#1 'nameptr :=
s num.names$ 'numnames :=
numnames 'namesleft :=
{ namesleft #0 > }
{ s nameptr
"{vv~}{ll}" format.name$
't :=
nameptr #1 >
{
nameptr #2 =
numnames #3 > and
{ "others" 't :=
#1 'namesleft := }
'skip$
if$
namesleft #1 >
{ ", " * t * }
{
s nameptr "{ll}" format.name$ duplicate$ "others" =
{ 't := }
{ pop$ }
if$
t "others" =
{
" " * bbl.etal *
}
{
numnames #2 >
{ "," * }
'skip$
if$
bbl.and
space.word * t *
}
if$
}
if$
}
't
if$
nameptr #1 + 'nameptr :=
namesleft #1 - 'namesleft :=
}
while$
}
After making this replacement, save the .bst file under a new name and adjust the \bibliographystyle command to point to the new file.
If you get complaints from BibTeX about nonexistent bbl.and and/or bbl.etal functions, just add the following code to the new .bst file (somewhere near the top of the file, soon after the start of the section in which the bibtex functions are defined):
FUNCTION {bbl.and}
{ "and"}
FUNCTION {bbl.etal}
{ "et~al." }
Here is a proof of concept (no support for the optional argument, and something similar is needed for \citep and other cite commands), and also it assumes that the .bst style use "et al" for references for more that a single author.
The idea is to create something similar to \ifciteseen in biblatex. Thus we can create a list of references already cited in the document (and we exploit the list facilities of etoolbox). Then, if the reference has not been used before we use \citet*, and we add the key to the list of seen references. Otherwise, we use \citet.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\usepackage{natbib}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{test1,
author = {Author, A. and Buthor, B and Cuthor, C and Duthor, D},
title = {Title},
journal = {Journal},
year = 2013
}
@article{test2,
author = {Author, A. and Buthor, B and Cuthor, C and Duthor, D},
title = {Title},
journal = {Journal},
year = 2012
}
\end{filecontents}
\newcommand{\citelist}{}
\newcounter{currentcite}
\newcounter{currentcitetotal}
\newcommand{\mycite}[1]{
\setcounter{currentcitetotal}{0}
\renewcommand{\do}[1]{\addtocounter{currentcitetotal}{1}}
\docsvlist{#1}
\renewcommand{\do}[1]{%
\addtocounter{currentcite}{1}%
\ifinlist{##1}{\citelist}
{\citet{##1}}
{\citet*{##1}\listadd{\citelist}{##1}}%
\ifnumcomp{\value{currentcitetotal}}{>}{\value{currentcite}}
{, }
{}%
}
\docsvlist{#1}
}
\begin{document}
\mycite{test1,test2}
\mycite{test1}
\mycite{test2}
\bibliographystyle{plainnat}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}
Best Answer
I suggest you use
biblatexwith these options:The
natbiboption is for compatibility with natbib commands.Note the default backend for biblatex is
biber. You may specify in the optionsbackend=bibtexbut you'll lose some functionalities.