[Tex/LaTex] shortauthor with apacite

apa-stylebibliographies

I'm working on a paper which requires citing a document with a corporate author, so an unwieldly name is something I'd like to avoid in my inline citations.

In order of preference, could I:

  • define a short name to be used in all citations after the first; or
  • define a short name to be used in citations (I'll manually track the first instance and provide the full name there)
  • and maybe another option I haven't considered?

MWE

main.tex

\documentclass[titlepage,a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{apacite}
\title{My Title}
\author{jimsug}

I would like to cite \cite{CORPAUTH} and have it appear as a short name, and output something like the below.

\bibliographystyle{apacite}
\bibliography{references}

references.bib

@booklet{CORPAUTH,
    author    = {{A Really Long Corporate Author Name}},
    title     = {A Booklet Title},
    year      = {2000},
    shortauthor = {ARLCAN}
}

My Title

jimsug

I would like to cite (ARLCAN, 2000) and have it appear as a short name, and output something like the below.

References

A Really Long Corporate Author Name. (2000). A booklet title.

Best Answer

If you load the apacite package with the option natbibapa, you can make use of all of the natbib package's citation-related commands. Suppose that a usable abbreviation for "A Really Long Corporate Author Name" (in the entry with key CORPAUTH) was RLCAN. You could then issue the instruction

\defcitealias{CORPAUTH}{RLCAN}

in the preamble and cite the piece using either \citetalias{CORPAUTH} or \citepalias{CORPAUTH} in the body of the document. Of course, you're always free to display the full name using the "plain" \citet and \citep commands.

For more information on this subject, see section 2.6, "Citation Aliasing", of the user guide of the natbib package as well as section 4.2 of the user guide of the apacite package.

Incidentally, if you have only one piece by RLCAN, it's generally not necessary to show the year along with the aliased author name when you cite the piece. The first time you cite the piece, though, I think it's good practice to show both the full name (including year) as well as the aliased name; for subsequent citation call-outs, the short alias suffices. See the example below for such a treatment.

enter image description here

\documentclass[titlepage,a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{references.bib}
@booklet{CORPAUTH,
    author    = {{A Really Long Corporate Author Name}},
    title     = {A Booklet Title},
    year      = {2000},
    shortauthor = {ARLCAN}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\usepackage[natbibapa]{apacite}
\bibliographystyle{apacite}
\defcitealias{CORPAUTH}{RLCAN}

\begin{document}
As argued by \citet{CORPAUTH}---hereafter, \citetalias{CORPAUTH} for the sake of brevity---it is necessary to show that \dots 

\bibliography{references}
\end{document}
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