Same author same year bibliography order

Question

\documentclass[twoside, a4paper, 12pt]{article}

\usepackage{natbib}

\begin{document}

\cite{pastorstambaugh} blah blah blah


\cite{pastorstambaugh2} blah blah blah


\bibliographystyle{apa-good}
\bibliography{bibliography}

\end{document}

I have two references, by the same author and same year, both published in 2002. pastorstambaugh was published first while pastorstambaugh2 was published later. So I want the former to have (2002a) when cited and the latter to have (2002b) when cited. Also I want the former to be listed before the latter in the reference list.

In my .bib file I have:

 @article{pastorstambaugh,
    author  = "P{\'a}stor, L. and Stambaugh, R.",
    title   = "{``Mutual fund performance and seemingly unrelated assets''}",
    year    = "2002",
    journal = "Journal of Financial Economics",
    volume  = "63",
    number  = "3",
    pages   = "315--349",
        month   = "may 30"
        }


                              @article{pastorstambaugh2,
    author  = "P{\'a}stor, L. and Stambaugh, R.",
    title   = "{``Investing in equity mutual funds''}",
    year    = "2002",
    journal = "Journal of Financial Economics",
    volume  = "63",
    number  = "3",
    pages   = "351--380",
        month   = "june 3"
        }

However, when I output the file, the order is reversed as follows:

enter image description here

How can I get the order that I want?

I found that with the plainnat style, it looks not at the title but at the bibtex label: @techreport{biblabel, if author and year are identical. Actually much easier. Only tested for techreport. — Martin Vermeer, Aug 28 '20 at 08:33

score 18 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 10 '14 at 09:24

BibTeX (or, better, apa-good) doesn't look at the month field for deciding what reference has been published before the other. If year and authors are the same, it sorts according to alphabetical order by title.

For such a case, modify your bib file as

@article{pastorstambaugh,
  author  = "P{\'a}stor, L. and Stambaugh, R.",
  title   = "{{\GG{20020530}}Mutual fund performance and seemingly unrelated assets}",
  year    = "2002",
  journal = "Journal of Financial Economics",
  volume  = "63",
  number  = "3",
  pages   = "315--349",
  month   = "May 30",
}

@article{pastorstambaugh2,
  author  = "P{\'a}stor, L. and Stambaugh, R.",
  title   = "{{\GG{20020603}}Investing in equity mutual funds}",
  year    = "2002",
  journal = "Journal of Financial Economics",
  volume  = "63",
  number  = "3",
  pages   = "351--380",
  month   = "June 3",
}

and add

\newcommand{\GG}[1]{}

to your document preamble. Why \GG? Because it's the first name that came to my mind. ;-) Use whatever free command name you like.

Self contained example:

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@article{pastorstambaugh,
  author  = "P{\'a}stor, L. and Stambaugh, R.",
  title   = "{{\GG{20020530}}Mutual fund performance and seemingly unrelated assets}",
  year    = "2002",
  journal = "Journal of Financial Economics",
  volume  = "63",
  number  = "3",
  pages   = "315--349",
  month   = "May 30",
}

@article{pastorstambaugh2,
  author  = "P{\'a}stor, L. and Stambaugh, R.",
  title   = "{{\GG{20020603}}Investing in equity mutual funds}",
  year    = "2002",
  journal = "Journal of Financial Economics",
  volume  = "63",
  number  = "3",
  pages   = "351--380",
  month   = "June 3",
}
\end{filecontents*}
\documentclass[twoside, a4paper, 12pt]{article}

\usepackage{natbib}
\newcommand{\GG}[1]{}

\begin{document}

\cite{pastorstambaugh} blah blah blah


\cite{pastorstambaugh2} blah blah blah


\bibliographystyle{apa-good}
\bibliography{\jobname}

\end{document}

Note that you shouldn't add quotes around titles; it's the bibliography style's job to add them if so is desired (it isn't for apa-good, apparently).

enter image description here

Is there any way to remove these lowercases 'a', 'b' if soneone dont want them to be appearing. — rudresh dwivedi, Sep 23 '18 at 12:08
@rudreshdwivedi The idea is being able to distinguishing between references: if you omit the letters, the reader will not know which paper you're referring to. — egreg, Sep 23 '18 at 12:23
If this \GG doesn't work in the title, try to put it in other fields. In my case, the order is "name > year > volume", so I changed volume = {\GG{9999}450}, in the reference I want it to be 'b'. — Stardust, Sep 17 '23 at 22:44

Same author same year bibliography order

1 Answers1

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