[Tex/LaTex] Reduce natbib bibliography to one line

bibliographiesnatbibparagraphs

I would like my references to look like

Foo et al. 2008, Nature, 100, 200 •
Bar & Baz et al. 2010, Science, 300,
400 • Einstein, 1905, New Scientist,
5, 6

where "•" is perhaps some configurable delimiter character, rather than like:

Foo et al. 2008, Nature, 100, 200

Bar & Baz et al. 2010, Science, 300, 400

Einstein, 1905, New Scientist, 5, 6

One (the crucial?) difference between my question and a similar previous question is that I use natbib and author-year citations. Here's a minimal example, that uses Stefan's answer, but has a couple of problems:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{natbib}

\usepackage{paralist}
\renewenvironment{thebibliography}[1]{%
  \section*{\refname}%
  \let\par\relax\let\newblock\relax%
  \inparaenum[{\textbullet}]}{\endinparaenum}
\renewcommand{\bibitem}[1]{\item}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{Author,
    Author = {{Author}, A.},
    Journal = {Science},
    Month = dec,
    Pages = {493-+},
    Title = {{Title A}},
    Volume = 490,
    Year = 1922,
    }

@article{Buthor,
    Author = {{Buthor}, B.},
    Journal = {Nature},
    Month = nov,
    Pages = {748-+},
    Title = {{Title B}},
    Volume = 136,
    Year = 1962,
    }
\end{filecontents}

\begin{document}

Citations: \cite{Author,Buthor}

\bibliography{\jobname}
\bibliographystyle{plain}

\end{document}

The problems are: (1) The citations in the text are question marks (I get errors like Package natbib Warning: Citation `Author' on page 1 undefined on input line 37.) and (2) I'm redefining the list environment to put a bullet every time, which feels wrong semantically, and results in Package paralist Warning: Incorrect label; no or multiple counters.

The third (and I think separate) problem is to do with my BiBTeX style file, mn.bst. If I use that rather than, e.g. plain, not only are the citations questions marks, but the references are screwed up and look like

• Author(1922)]Author Author A., 1922, Science, 490, 493 • Buthor(1962)]Buthor Buthor B., 1962, Nature, 136, 748

Note the citations and references look fine if I comment out the material between \usepackage{paralist} and \usepackage{filecontents}.

Guidance on any or all of these problems would be very welcome, and guidance that postpones my inevitable migration to biblatex especially so! 🙂

Best Answer

Removing the \renewcommand{\bibitem}[1]{\item} seems to work.

EDIT: try this....

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{natbib}

\usepackage{paralist}
\let\olditem\item
\renewenvironment{thebibliography}[1]{%
  \section*{\refname}
  \let\par\relax\let\newblock\relax
  \renewcommand{\item}[1][]{\olditem[\textbullet]}%
  \inparaenum}{\endinparaenum}

\begin{document}
Citations: \cite{Author,Buthor}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\bibliographystyle{mn}

\end{document}
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