Astrobib: A Suite of BibTEX Styles for Astronomy Journals

Henry C. Ferguson
Space Telescope Science Institute
3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD
email: [email protected]
Ethan Bradford
Department of Physics, FM-15
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
The astrobib package provides tools for preparing the references for
astronomical publications. Astrobib uses the standard BibTEX software to
collect all the references cited in the text and format the reference list at the end
of the paper according to the style requirements of the dierent astronomical
journals. It has style les for ApJ, AJ, A&A, MNRAS, and PASP. It has
been tested with the AASTeX macro package for ApJ, AJ, and PASP, with
the Blackwell macro package for MNRAS, and with the Springer Verlag macro
package for A&A.
Astrobib can be obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.stsci.edu.
Ancillary packages are available from the same source to simplify the use of
BibTEX.

1. Introduction: Astrobib and BibTEX

The most tedious part of preparing an article is dealing with the references: keeping
track of which have been cited and formatting the reference section at the end of the paper
in accordance with a particular journal's requirements. The standard BibTEX package
provides facilities for doing this, but has not caught on in the astronomical community, for
two reasons: (1) standard BibTEX styles does not format the references in the style used
by most astronomy publications, and (2) BibTEX itself is perceived as rather cumbersome.
To address the rst problem, the astrobib software provides BibTEX styles that are
in accord with the requirements of the major astronomical journals, and compatible with
 {2{

with the LATEX macros from the American Astronomical Society, as well as the LATEX styles
distributed by A&A and MNRAS.
To address the second problem, the ancillary packages ref_to_tex and get_ref
attempt to simplify the use of BibTEX. These packages are also available from ftp.stsci.edu.
However, their use is not required; authors already comfortable with BibTEX may prefer
not to use them. Instructions for using ref_to_tex and get_ref are provided in a separate
document.
The astrobib package includes bibliographic styles for The Astrophysical Journal
(ApJ), The Astronomical Journal (AJ), Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A), Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), and Publications of the Astronomy
Society of the Pacic (PASP). All implement, to rst order, the formats for references
specied in 1992 or 1993 \Instructions to Authors" of the dierent journals, with certain
ambiguities cleared up by consulting the references in articles in 1994 issues, or, in some
cases, consulting the managing editors.
This guide contains basic instructions for creating documents using astrobib. Authors
are expected to be familiar with the editorial requirements of the journals so that they can
make appropriate submissions, as well as to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of LATEX
and the WGAS LATEX macros.
Astrobib uses standard BibTEX and LATEX. Citations in the text look like
\cite{BFGK84}, and entries in the BibTEX database le look like

@article{BFGK84,
author = {David Burstein
and S. M. Faber
and Gaskell, C. Martin
and Krumm, N.},
year = 1984,
journal = apj,
volume = 287,
pages = 586
}

The ancillary packages ref_to_tex and get_ref simplify the database format and
allow more intuitive citations in the text.
A major advantage of using astrobib with or without the ancillary packages is that
 {3{

the reference database can be completely independent of the papers or the journals to
which they will be submitted. BibTEX will take care of determining which references have
been cited in the paper and formatting them for the particular journal. If you are religious
about using the \cite commands, you will never have to check the references section to see
that you have listed all (and only) the references cited in the text. If the paper is rejected
by MNRAS and you wish to submit it to ApJ instead, you need only change three lines in
the le.
Currently most journals will accept electronic submissions of articles formatted with
a specied LATEX macro style. The referencing system described here is in principle
compatible with this, but requires inclusion of the astrobib style as a modier, something
that is not currently allowed under the rules for electronic submission. Until these rules
change, papers formatted using astrobib should not be submitted electronically.

2. BibTEX Styles for Astronomy Journals

The BibTEX styles in this package are all based on the `Chicago' BibTEX style,
distributed by Glenn Paulley, University of Waterloo, July 1992. This style has the
advantage that it handles many dierent ways of citing a reference in the text, with the
attendant disadvantage that there are more commands to remember. The commands are
fairly straightforward and are shown in Table 1. Typical papers use primarily the \cite,
\citeN and the \citeNP commands. (The shortcite commands are only useful in the case
of three authors, which in the ApJ are cited the rst time listing all three authors and
subsequent times using `et al.'. For articles with more than three authors, the package puts
the `et al.' in throughout.)
The style les are listed in Table 2. All implement, to the extent possible, the
recommendations set out in recent \Instructions to Authors " of the various journals,
supplemented by inspection of recent articles and consultation with editors. In practice, the
journals show a varying degree of adherence to their own standards, ranging from the rather
strict enforcement of the ApJ to the rather laissez-faire policies of A&A and PASP. In the
latter cases, the format of the references produced by astrobib is somewhere between the
requirements and the practice of most of the articles currently published by those journals.
Details of the inconsistencies are listed in the le inconsistencies accompanying the
astrobib distribution.
The BibTEX styles take care of proper punctuation of the references, truncating long
author lists at the proper point and adding `et al.', adding `a' or `b' to the year for citations
by the same authors in the same year, sorting the resulting reference list, etc.
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Table 1. BibTEX commands

Command example of output Description
\nocite{key} Quietly adds to the reference list
\cite{key} (Brown 1978) In parentheses
\citeNP{key} Brown 1978 No parentheses
\citeA{key} (Brown) Just authors
\citeANP{key} Brown Just authors, no parentheses
\citeN{key} Brown (1978) parentheses around year only
\shortcite{key} (Brown et al. 1988) Uses abbreviated author list
\shortciteNP{key} Brown et al. 1988 same with no parentheses
\shortciteA{key} (Brown et al.) shortcite with just authors
\shortciteANP{key} Brown et al. same with no parentheses
\shortciteN{key} Brown et al. (1988) parentheses around year only
\citeyear{key} (1988) Just year in parentheses
\citeyearNP{key} 1988 Just year, no parentheses

Table 2. BibTEX Style les

Name Description
apj.bst Style le for the Astrophysical Journal
aj.bst Style le for the Astronomical Journal
mnras.bst Style le for Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
pasp.bst Style le for Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacic
aa.bst Style le for Astronomy and Astrophysics
apjmnemonics.bib Journal Mnemonics for ApJ
ajmnemonics.bib Journal Mnemonics for AJ
mnrasmnemonics.bib Journal Mnemonics for MNRAS
paspmnemonics.bib Journal Mnemonics for PASP
aamnemonics.bib Journal Mnemonics for A&A
 {5{

The mnemonics les are included because the abbreviations for the most cited journals
are still not universal: for example, recent issues of ApJ cite `Nature', while MNRAS and
A&A cite `Nat.' To use the mnemonics, you would put `nat' in your database le, and allow
BibTEX to translate to `Nat' or `Nature' as required by the Journal. (This doesn't preclude
using `Nature' in your database le, but in that case the cite would come out wrong for
MNRAS and A&A.)
The style les for this version (version 3) have been improved over previous versions
and should now have all the punctuation correct. The BibTEX entry types article,
book, inbook, proceedings, inproceedings, phdthesis, mastersthesis, misc and
unpublished are implemented. There is also an additional entry type privatecomm, for
those keen on name-dropping. The unpublished type is a catchall, since in that case you
format everything yourself after the author and date. The sorting of the reference lists has
not yet been modied from the original Chicago style, and is not quite right for multiple
author lists. Cross referenced entries work properly, but are of limited use.
For the few cases where the formatting or sorting is not right, it is always possible to
edit the .bbl les and rerun LATEX. Nevertheless, the authors would appreciate hearing
about any signicant problems or suggestions for improvements.

3. Using the BibTEX Styles

3.1. Using the BibTEX Styles with the AAS/WGAS LATEX macros
Three commands are required in the LATEX document to use the BibTEX styles. Before
the \begin{document} command there must be a line like
\documentstyle[12pt,aasms,astrobib]{article}

At the point in the document where you want the bibliography to appear (usually
before the gure captions) a \bibliography and a \bibliographystyle command must
be added. For example, for the Astrophysical Journal with a personal bibliography le
named \bib.bib", these lines would be added.
\bibliography{apjmnemonic,bib}
\bibliographystyle{apj}

For the Astronomical Journal, change `apj' to `aj'. For Publications of the Astronomical
Society of the Pacic, change `apj' to `pasp'.
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3.2. Using the BibTEX Styles with the Blackwell MNRAS Style

The commands dened in astrobib.sty are not quite compatible with those dened
in mn.sty, distributed by Blackwell Scientic Publications Ltd. for use with MNRAS. The
incompatibilities are minor, and can be xed by commenting out the following lines in
mn.sty:

\def\@cite#1#2{(#1\if@tempswa , #2\fi)}
\newlength{\bibhang}
\setlength{\bibhang}{2em}
\let\@internalcite\cite
\def\cite{\def\citename##1{##1}\@internalcite}
\def\shortcite{\def\citename##1{}\@internalcite}

Having done this, and renamed the le mn-ab.sty, the \documentstyle command should
read \documentstyle[astrobib]{mn-ab}. The bibliography commands at the end are as
follows:

\bibliography{mnrasmnemonic,bib}
\bibliographystyle{mnras}

3.3. Using the BibTEX Styles with the Springer-Verlag A&A Style

Astrobib works with version 1.1 of the A&A style (laa.sty) using the command
\documentstyle[astrobib]{laa} , with the bibliography commands

\bibliography{aamnemonic,bib}
\bibliographystyle{aa}

3.4. Printing a le that uses BibTEX

When you change a reference in your document, you need to carry out the following
steps to print it:
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latex file # Note for BibTeX what was cited.

bibtex file # Create reference list.
latex file # Get reference list into .aux file.
latex file # Pass with cross references right.
dvips file | lpr # Print (system dependent).

For changes to the document outside of the references, only the last two steps are
usually necessary.
If this does not work, it is likely that either the astrobib les are not installed
properly, or that you need to dene some environment variables. If, for example,
the style les are installed in /usr/local/lib/tex/inputs and the .bib les are in
/usr/local/lib/tex/bib try setting the following environment variables:

setenv TEXINPUTS "/usr/local/lib/tex/inputs:"

setenv BIBINPUTS "/usr/local/lib/tex/bib:"

If that does not work, consult your system manager or the astrobib installation instructions.

3.5. Notes and Peculiarities

The cite commands do not work in tables and gure captions. The solution is to
format the citations yourselves within the table or caption, then use \nocite commands
somewhere in the text to ensure that the citations get added to the reference list.
Articles in press should be represented in the .bib le as an @article, with a pages
eld of \in press". When the article comes out, the pages eld should be changed to the
published pages. A similar construct should be used for \submitted." For \in preparation,"
one typically does not specify the journal, and so it is best to use @unpublished.
Preprints should be represented in the .bib le as @misc, with the word \preprint" in
the howpublished eld. For example, the .bib le entry for a preprint by Kurucz (1992)
would read
@misc{Kurucz92,
author = {Kurucz, R. L.},
year = {1992},
howpublished = {preprint}
}
 {8{

Notes can be included in the note eld. If the eld begins with punctuation, the
BibTEX styles will use that, otherwise the note will be separated with a comma.
Articles by the same authors in the same cite command do not work properly. Use a
construct like this for citations from dierent years: \(\citeNP{S1},\citeyearNP{S2})";
use one like this for citations in the same year: \(\citeNP{S1},b\nocite{S2})".
Astrobib comes with a test suite of citations in the directory examples, which may be
useful as templates.

3.6. Example

The following is an example of a document using the ApJ style. The database for this
example is in the le xample.bib distributed with this document.

\documentstyle[12pt,aaspp,astrobib]{article}
\begin{document}

Here is a normal citation \cite{Ferguson89}. Ferguson \& Sandage

\citeyear{FS89} can be cited as a noun using the citeyear
command, or we can cite \citeN{FS89} as a noun using the citeN command.
The advantage of using the latter is that some journals use \& to
separate the names, while others use `and'. Multiple citations (e.g.
\citeNP{Bertola1988a,Ferguson89}) are separated by commas. Just
to be complete, we should cite a book \cite{BT87} and an article in
preparation \cite{FD93prep}. Use the nocite command to add a citation
(e.g. Ferguson et al. 1991) \nocite{Ferg91L}
to the reference list but not the text.

\bibliography{apjmnemonic,xample} \bibliographystyle{apj}
\end{document}

And here is what the output would look like:

Here is a normal citation (Ferguson 1989). Ferguson & Sandage (1989) can be cited as
a noun using the citeyear command, or we can cite Ferguson & Sandage (1989) as a noun
using the citeN command. The advantage of using the latter is that some journals use & to
separate the names, while others use `and'. Multiple citations (e.g. Bertola 1988; Ferguson
 {9{

1989) are separated by commas. Just to be complete, we should cite a book (Binney &
Tremaine 1987) and an article in preparation (Ferguson & Davidsen 1993). Use the nocite
command to add a citation (e.g. Ferguson et al. 1991) to the reference list but not the text.

REFERENCES

Bertola, F. 1988, in A Decade of UV Astronomy with the IUE Satellite (ESA SP-281, Vol.
2), 63
Binney, J., & Tremaine, S. 1987, Galactic Dynamics (Princeton: Princeton University
Press)
Ferguson, H. C. 1989, AJ, 98, 367
Ferguson, H. C., & Davidsen, A. F. 1993, in preparation
Ferguson, H. C., et al. 1991, ApJ, 382, L69
Ferguson, H. C., & Sandage, A. 1989, ApJ, 346, L53

This preprint was prepared with the AAS LATEX macros v3.0.