Adding references and citations to any document can be a time-consuming task. You may need to include a single reference multiple times and also ensure each one follows a consistent referencing style.
The good news is that LaTeX’s bibliography management tool BibTeX makes much of the work involved in reference management a breeze. This is because BibTeX bibliography entries are kept within a separate BibTeX database file that can be imported easily into your main document.
In general, using bib file for referencing saves a lot of time. This makes it useful for researchers that need to cite or include a large number of references that are presented consistently in their document.
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Adding a reference in a LaTex bibliography file, or bib file can seem intimidating at first. However, managing a bib file is a relatively simple and straightforward process once you understand the steps involved. We have broken down the procedure into 7 simple steps for this guide.
Begin document: Create an empty LaTeX document with “.tex” extension in your preferred LaTeX editor. This could be TeXstudio, ShareLaTeX, or Texmaker.
Create a new empty file and rename it to “citation.bib”.
The “bib” extension informs the LaTeX compiler that the bib file contains all the references for your document. Each of these files will be formatted in a particular style discussed in later steps.
The next step is to obtain your citation. Look for the paper you wish to cite in Google Scholar. Once you have located the paper on Google Scholar’s search results, look for a set of inverted commas next to a star symbol.
Select the inverted commas, and a window titled “cite” should appear.
This Cite window will list a number of different citation styles such as MLA and APA. At the bottom of this window, there should be a set of hyperlinks for BibTeX, EndNote, RefMan, and RefWorks. Select BibTeX and your citation should appear in the following format:
