4

When I use Biblatex with style=ieee, I get a COMMA and a AND before the third author in my bibliography:

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[backend=bibtex,style=ieee]{biblatex} 
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{doe2015,
author={Doe1, J. and Doe2 K. and Doe3 L.},
title={Why I get this extra comma before the 'and' ?}
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\begin{document}
Citation here: \cite{doe2015}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Produces:

enter image description here

Where is this listed as IEEE style?

My question is: how to fix (remove) the last comma before the "and"?

Also, I think this is not following IEEE anyway:

This: http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieeecitationref.pdf

is mentioning:

three or more authors: J. K. Author et al.

Why is this not implemented? Where can I find the "official" IEEE citation guidelines which is implemented by Biblatex/IEEE?

How can I enable this mode to list only the first author?

lockstep
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robert
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  • For the comma, this is recommended by basic English grammar: http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/020204whencommabfand.htm As for the number of authors "J. K. Author et al.", I think it should be avoided as it somehow lacks respect for the remaining authors. In electronic documents, having a long list of authors is fine. – pluton Jan 03 '16 at 03:30
  • Related: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/130180/getting-rid-of-comma-before-and-in-authors-names – Bach Apr 28 '16 at 18:24

3 Answers3

7

The implementation in biblatex-ieee follows as far as possible that in ieeetran. The latter describes itself as being official correct, so this is a reasonable reference point.

On the specific point about the 'Oxford comma' here, if you look at texdoc ieeetran and for example ref. 20 you will see

C. Barratt, M. C. Grant, and D. Carlisle.

with a comma. This is the reason that this is implemented as part of biblatex-ieee.

If you wish to override the behaviour, adding

\ExecuteBibliographyOptions{
  maxnames = 2,
  minnames = 1,
}

after loading biblatex will truncate the author list.

Joseph Wright
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  • Jospeh, thanks for your explanation but I still want to get rid of this oxford comma in Biblatex/IEEE. Is there a simple way (eg switch) to do this? – robert May 08 '15 at 11:02
6

It is enough to modify the value of \finalandcomma:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\usepackage[backend=bibtex,style=ieee]{biblatex}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{doe2015,
author={Doe1, J. and Doe2 K. and Doe3 L.},
title={Why I get this extra comma before the 'and'?},
year = 2015
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\AtBeginBibliography{\renewcommand\finalandcomma{}}

\begin{document}

Citation here: \cite{doe2015}
\printbibliography

\end{document}

As mentioned by @moewe, a nicer way, instead of \AtBeginBibliography{…} is to write \DefineBibliographyExtras{english}{\let\finalandcomma=\empty}.

enter image description here

pluton
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Bernard
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  • Thanks! This did the trick. Also thanks on behalf of future vistors with this question. – robert May 08 '15 at 11:39
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    I believe a slightly nicer way is \DefineBibliographyExtras{english}{\let\finalandcomma=\empty}. You will see a difference to the simple \AtBeginBibliography when using a style like authoryear and works with three authors: \cite{companion}. Cf. Multiple authors in (classicthesis) Bibliography: removing comma before “and” – moewe Jan 02 '16 at 21:26
  • @moewe: Thanks for the link. I've added your way to my answer. I agree with you it's nicer. – Bernard Jan 02 '16 at 22:51
  • Indeed, you will not only find that it is nicer, but also that only that approach gives satisfying results in all situations, \AtBeginBibliography{\renewcommand\finalandcomma{}} does not get rid of the Oxford commas in citations and probably has trouble if the language is switched in the bibliography. You can try the following example ... – moewe Jan 03 '16 at 07:59
  • ... `\documentclass[english]{article} \usepackage{babel} \usepackage{filecontents} \usepackage[backend=bibtex,style=authoryear,autolang=other]{biblatex} \begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib} @article{doe2015, author={Doe1, J. and Doe2 K. and Doe3 L.}, title={Why}, year = 2015 } \end{filecontents}

    \addbibresource{\jobname.bib} \addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib} %\AtBeginBibliography{\renewcommand\finalandcomma{}} %\DefineBibliographyExtras{english}{\let\finalandcomma=\empty}

    \begin{document} Citation here: \cite{doe2015,companion} \printbibliography \end{document} `

     – moewe Jan 03 '16 at 07:59
1

You've written the authors' names incorrectly and Bibtex is confused.

If you put the surname first followed by the initial you have to put a comma behind each surname: author={Doe1, J. and Doe2, K. and Doe3, L.},

Alternatively you could put initials first and then surnames, in which case no commas are needed: author={J. Doe1 and K. Doe2 and L. Doe3},

Vermilion
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