[Tex/LaTex] Sorting by author last name

bibtex

I am using document class article, and using the following to refer to references:

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{MyRef}

An example of the article entry is like this:

@ARTICLE{KG:2001,
     author = "{Ratnesh Kumar and Vijay K. Garg}",
     title = "{some Title}",
     journal = "{IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control}",
     year = {2001},
     volume = {46},
     number = {4},
     month = "",
     pages = {593--606},
     publisher = "",
     address = "" 
}

An example of the techreport entry is like this:

@TECHREPORT{E:N:T:Z:2003,
        author  = "{Sameh Elnikety and Erich Nahum and John Tracey and Willy Zwaenepoel}",
        title   = "{Some Title}",
        type ="",
        institution = "",
        year  = "2003",
        month = "", 
        number = ""
 
}

An example of the in proceedings entry is like this:

@INPROCEEDINGS{H:G:2001,
        author = "Kau Hun and Diana Glanen",
        title = "{Some title}",
        booktitle = "{Proceedings of the First International Workshop}",
        series = "Lecture Notes in Computer Science",
        volume = "1",
        pages = "304--305",
        year = "2001",
        month="",
        location="",
        editor = "",
        publisher = "Springer-Verlag",
        address = "London, UK" 
}

The file name that contains the entries is MyRef.bib

For some reason, the references are ordered by first name and not last. As I have many bib entries, could you tell me what is the fastest way I could fix this?

Best Answer

You need to format your bibliography file correctly. Writing 

author = "{xxx yyy and aaa bbb}"

will be interpreted as a one single author whose name is simply a surname. You should write

author = {xxx yyy and aaa bbb}

or better

author = {yyy, xxx and bbb, aaa}

with each name as Last, First:

Sample output

@TechReport{E:N:T:Z:2003,
  author =   {Elnikety, Sameh and Nahum, Erich and Tracey, John
                  and Zwaenepoel, Willy},
  title =    {Some Title},
  institution =  {Some Inst.},
  year =     2003
}

@InProceedings{H:G:2001,
  author =   {Hun, Kau and Glanen, Diana},
  title =    {Some title},
  booktitle =    {Proceedings of the First International Workshop},
  series =   {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
  volume =   1,
  pages =    {304--305},
  year =     2001,
  publisher =    {Springer-Verlag},
  address =  {London, UK}
}

@Article{KG:2001,
  author =   {Kumar Ratnesh and Garg, Vijay K.},
  title =    {Some Title},
  journal =  {IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control},
  year =     2001,
  volume =   46,
  number =   4,
  pages =    {593--606}
}

created with the latex file

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
\nocite{*}
\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{MyRef}
\end{document}

A very good explanation of the syntax of bib files may be found in Part 3 of Tame the BeaST. As Jospeh Wright points out you can use "..." instead of {...} but using both as "{...}" will double quote the contents and lead to the unwanted interpretation of your input.

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