LaTeX and BibTeX

Referencing in LaTeX

To create a reference list and cite in a LaTeX document:

1. Create a .bib file

• ​This can either be created from scratch, or an easier method is to use a reference manager to create a .bib file. Each reference manager has a slightly different process, but these can be found for the most popular managers within this LibGuide. 

1. Add citation place holders (also known as citation keys)
2. Compile document through packages

Inserting citations and a reference list in LaTeX

Create a .bib file 

This is a simple .bib file of a basic book:

@Book{Dummy:1,
author = "John Doe",
title = "Untitled Book",
publisher = "Dummy Publisher",
year = 2019,
}

Use BibTeX

Once you've created a BibTeX file, we need to tell our LaTeX document where to find with bibliographic database. To do this we need the commands \bibliography (which tells LaTeX where the .bib file is located) and \bibliographystyle (which selects the appropriate bibliography style we need). 

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

Type your text here. This text requires a citation \cite{Dummy:1} to embed the citation in the required position in the text.

\newpage

\bibliography{name of .bib file}

\bibliographystyle{ieeetr}

\end document

It will look something like this:

Type your text here. This text requires a citation [1] to embed the citation in the required position in the text.

References

[1] J. Doe, Untitled Book. Dummy publisher, 2019.