Changes to the standard styles

This section describes changes to the standard styles (plain, unsrt, alpha, abbrv) that affect ordinary users. Changes that affect style designers appear in the document ``Designing BibTeX Styles'' [].

1. In general, sorting is now by ``author'', then year, then title--the old versions didn't use the year field. (The alpha style, however, sorts first by label, then ``author'', year, and title.) The quotes around author mean that some entry types might use something besides the author, like the editor or organization.
2. Many unnecessary ties (~) have been removed. LaTeX thus will produce slightly fewer `Underfull \hbox' messages when it's formatting the reference list.
3. Emphasizing ({\em ...}) has replaced italicizing ({\it ...}). This will almost never result in a difference between the old output and the new.
4. The alpha style now uses a superscripted ` ' instead of a `*' to represent names omitted in constructing the label. If you really liked it the way it was, however, or if you want to omit the character entirely, you don't have to modify the style file--you can override the ` ' by redefining the \etalchar command that the alpha style writes onto the bbl file (just preceding the \thebibliography environment); use LaTeX's \renewcommand inside a database @PREAMBLE command, described in the previous subsection's item 6.
5. The abbrv style now uses `Mar.' and `Sept.'\ for those months rather than `March' and `Sep.'
6. The standard styles use 's new cross-referencing feature by giving a \cite of the cross-referenced entry and by omitting from the cross-referencing entry (most of the) information that appears in the cross-referenced entry. These styles do this when a titled thing (the cross-referencing entry) is part of a larger titled thing (the cross-referenced entry). There are five such situations: when (1) an INPROCEEDINGS (or CONFERENCE, which is the same) cross references a PROCEEDINGS; when (2) a BOOK, (3) an INBOOK, or (4) an INCOLLECTION cross references a BOOK (in these cases, the cross-referencing entry is a single volume in a multi-volume work); and when (5) an ARTICLE cross references an ARTICLE (in this case, the cross-referenced entry is really a journal, but there's no JOURNAL entry type; this will result in warning messages about an empty author and title for the journal--you should just ignore these warnings).
7. The MASTERSTHESIS and PHDTHESIS entry types now take an optional type field. For example you can get the standard styles to call your reference a `Ph.D. dissertation' instead of the default `PhD thesis' by including a

       type = "{Ph.D.} dissertation"

   in your database entry.
8. Similarly, the INBOOK and INCOLLECTION entry types now take an optional type field, allowing `section 1.2' instead of the default `chapter 1.2'. You get this by putting

       chapter = "1.2",
       type = "Section"

   in your database entry.
9. The BOOKLET, MASTERSTHESIS, and TECHREPORT entry types now format their title fields as if they were ARTICLE titles rather than BOOK titles.
10. The PROCEEDINGS and INPROCEEDINGS entry types now use the address field to tell where a conference was held, rather than to give the address of the publisher or organization. If you want to include the publisher's or organization's address, put it in the publisher or organization field.
11. The BOOK, INBOOK, INCOLLECTION, and PROCEEDINGS entry types now allow either volume or number (but not both), rather than just volume.
12. The INCOLLECTION entry type now allows a series and an edition field.
13. The INPROCEEDINGS and PROCEEDINGS entry types now allow either a volume or number, and also a series field.
14. The UNPUBLISHED entry type now outputs, in one block, the note field followed by the date information.
15. The MANUAL entry type now prints out the organization in the first block if the author field is empty.
16. The MISC entry type now issues a warning if all the optional fields are empty (that is, if the entire entry is empty).