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I am currently writing a thesis where I use two different articles from the same author from the same year. As a result when using footnotes it appends a letter to the year, e.g. 2008a, 2008b, 2008c and so on. I don't need that nor am I allowed to do so judging from the guidelines I received.

I fail to understand why this is happening and what my steps would be to remove it completely. I read about a "uniquename" flag in the documentation but that seems to be for a different kind of issue.

I am importing biblatex like this (which is the standard way afaik): https://github.com/andygrunwald/FOM-LaTeX-Template/blob/master/thesis_main.tex#L120

Anyone got any input for me where I should start to get rid of this? Thanks a lot.

My example:

Import of biblatex and configuration

\usepackage[
backend=biber,
style=ext-authoryear,
maxcitenames=3,
maxbibnames=999,
mergedate=false,
date=iso,
seconds=true,
urldate=iso,
innamebeforetitle,
dashed=false,
autocite=footnote,
doi=false,
useprefix=true,
mincrossrefs = 1
]{biblatex}

I used the following sources as examples:

@online{example-1,
    usera = {Example One},
    title = {Example One},
    author = {Good Author},
    organization = {},
    location = {},
    date = {2018-12-20},
    urldate = {2019-01-02},
    urltime = {23:30},
    url = {https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/fullrefman.pdf},
}

@online{example-2,
    usera = {Example Two},
    title = {Example Two},
    author = {Good Author},
    organization = {},
    location = {},
    date = {2018-12-20},
    urldate = {2019-01-02},
    urltime = {23:30},
    url = {https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/fullrefman.pdf},
}

And made a citation like this:

Example citations here.\footcite[][]{example-1} \footcite[][]{example-2}

This results in:

Author 2018a Author 2018b

I would like to get rid of the additional letters (a and b).

Source code

youngStupidQuestionGod
  • 1
  • 1
    and how would you differentiate the articles if they are all cited as "author (2008)"? Adding a letter is the standard way here, and imho every guideline allows it. – Ulrike Fischer Jan 10 '20 at 21:56
  • 3
    Then check the documentation for extrayear (as you didn't provide a minimal example, I won't search myself) – Ulrike Fischer Jan 10 '20 at 22:00
  • A possible solution is at https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/303385/35864. But there is probably a better way to do this. Unfortunately, I can only suggest a better way once I see what you are doing and how you are producing citations in a short example document (a so-called MWE: https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/q/228/35864). – moewe Jan 11 '20 at 08:03
  • Please try to minimise the example so far that you can post it here directly in the question. Ideally the example would only consist of one file. – moewe Jan 11 '20 at 11:15
  • Is that code for the FOM(?) style and does it come from golatex? – moewe Jan 11 '20 at 11:19
  • @moewe the code itself is meant to be used for the FOM but I made some stylistic changes so it fits my university needs. I found it through GitHub. I digged through the configuration and I found no configuration which explicitly enables nor disables it. The documentation shows different configuration parameters: http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/CTAN/macros/latex/contrib/biblatex/doc/biblatex.pdf --- the documentation explains when it's being used and how it's making use of mknumalph. However, I found no toggle for it – youngStupidQuestionGod Jan 11 '20 at 11:24
  • I changed my example so it only holds the bare minimum: https://github.com/thesiswriter1/mwe-latex - I'll also add it to my starting post. – youngStupidQuestionGod Jan 11 '20 at 12:31

2 Answers2

3

In the usual authoryear setting it makes no sense to remove the extradate information, indeed it can make your bibliography unusable because a reader has no way to match the citation to the bibliography entry. (There is no nice interface to turn off the extradate features in authoryear without turning off other features as well. But there is a not so nice way to achieve the result: BibLaTeX – Remove Year Labels. I should stress again that this is a bad idea.)

In your style you add a short title (in usera) to each citation, so that it becomes possible to distinguish two works by the same authors from the same year. You'll need the extradate only if there are two works from the same authors in the same year with the same usera field. I suggest that is what you request from biblatex with

\DeclareExtradate{%
  \scope{
    \field{labelyear}
    \field{year}
  }
  \scope{
    \field{usera}
  }
}

Then the following reduced form of the original example 

\documentclass[ngerman]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage[
  backend=biber,
  style=ext-authoryear,
  maxcitenames=3,
  maxbibnames=999,
  mergedate=false,
  date=iso,
  seconds=true,
  urldate=iso,
  urldateusetime=true,
  innamebeforetitle,
  dashed=false,
  autocite=footnote,
  doi=false,
  eprint=false,
  isbn=false,
  url=false,
  useprefix=true,
  mincrossrefs=1,
]{biblatex}



\DeclareExtradate{%
  \scope{
    \field{labelyear}
    \field{year}
  }
  \scope{
    \field{usera}
  }
}


\renewbibmacro*{date+extradate}{%
  \printtext[parens]{%
    \printfield{usera}%
    \setunit{\printdelim{titleyeardelim}}%
    \ifentrytype{online}
       {\setunit*{\addspace\addcomma\addspace}%
         \iffieldundef{year}
           {\bibstring{nodate}}
           {\printlabeldateextra}}%
       {\printlabeldateextra}}}

\renewbibmacro*{cite:labeldate+extradate}{%
    \ifentrytype{online}
       {\setunit*{\addspace\addcomma\addspace}%
         \iffieldundef{year}
           {\bibstring{nodate}}
           {\printlabeldateextra}}%
       {\printlabeldateextra}}

\DeclareDelimFormat{nonameyeardelim}{\addcomma\space}
\DeclareDelimFormat{nameyeardelim}{\addcomma\space}

\renewbibmacro*{cite}{%
  \iffieldundef{shorthand}
    {\ifthenelse{\ifnameundef{labelname}\OR\iffieldundef{labelyear}}
       {\usebibmacro{cite:label}%
        \setunit{\printdelim{nonameyeardelim}}}
      {\toggletrue{abx@bool@giveninits}%
        \printnames[family-given]{labelname}%
        \setunit{\printdelim{nameyeardelim}}}%
      \printfield{usera}%
      \setunit{\printdelim{titleyeardelim}}%
     \usebibmacro{cite:labeldate+extradate}}
   {\usebibmacro{cite:shorthand}}}

\begin{filecontents}[force]{\jobname.bib}
@book{appleby,
  author  = {Humphrey Appleby},
  title   = {On the Importance of the Civil Service},
  date    = {1980},
}
@online{example-1,
  usera   = {Example One},
  title   = {Example One},
  author  = {Good Author},
  date    = {2018-12-20},
  urldate = {2019-01-02},
  urltime = {23:30},
  url     = {https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/fullrefman.pdf},
}
@online{example-2,
  usera   = {Example Two},
  title   = {Example Two},
  author  = {Good Author},
  date    = {2018-12-20},
  urldate = {2019-01-02},
  urltime = {23:30},
  url     = {https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/fullrefman.pdf},
}
@online{example-3,
  usera   = {Example Two},
  title   = {Example Two},
  author  = {Good Author},
  date    = {2018-12-20},
  urldate = {2019-01-02T23:30:00},
  url     = {https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/fullrefman.pdf},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}


\begin{document}
Lorem\footcite[][]{example-1}
ipsum\footcite[][]{example-2,example-3}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

produces

Author, G., Example One, 2018.//Author, G., Example Two, 2018a; Author, G., Example Two, 2018b.

Note that the second footnote contains the disambiguation letters only because author, usera and year are the same.

moewe
  • 175,683
  • @youngStupidQuestionGod Well, the FOM style is very peculiar. You can read the history of how (parts of) it came about at https://golatex.de/eigener-zitierstil-anpassung-authoryear-icomp-t20497.html and https://golatex.de/literaturverzeichnis-anpassung-t21484.html (in German, but I trust you read German; not everything in the FOM template comes from the linked discussions). If you don't need to follow FOM guidelines I strongly suggest you start from a different basis. There are many questions about biblatex customisations here and elsewhere ... – moewe Jan 12 '20 at 11:37
  • ... but I couldn't find a good answer for "author-title-year" footnotes just now and of course the best solution depends on your exact requirements. So I suggest you ask a new question. Please note that questions on TeX.SX should ideally be about a single issue only (and questions like "how do I write this style" with 30-odd requirements usually don't fit into that category). In that case a normal forum like https://golatex.de/ might be more suitable for the discussions that invariable have to take place. – moewe Jan 12 '20 at 11:39
  • Thanks, I will do so. Staying on the current question: I'm super grateful for all your help but I am still confused: The result still shows the letters being appended to the year, doesn't it? – youngStupidQuestionGod Jan 12 '20 at 14:07
  • @youngStupidQuestionGod Yes, but only if author, year and usera are the same. Not if only author and year are the same (otherwise footnote 1 would also have a letter). If there were no letter in the second footnote you could not distinguish the two citations. – moewe Jan 12 '20 at 14:14
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – youngStupidQuestionGod Jan 12 '20 at 14:26
1

You can personalize the citation using a newcommand to simplify your task:

Supposing you just setted up the bibLaTeX, and author's name, title and year are separeted by single hyphens:

\newcommand{\citeG}[1]{\citeauthor{#1}-\citetitle{#1}-\citeyear{#1}}

Now you after this command you can use \citeG{bibkey} to cite the document according to your desired standard.

The lack of MWE (Minimal Working Example) makes a more effective response impossible, as Ulrike Fischer mentioned.

Emílio Kavamura
  • 106
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    In general it is a really bad idea to combine several \cite... macros into a new command with \newcommand. Commands defined like this can usually not deal with citation of multiple works as expected (try \citeG{sigfridsson,nussbaum}). Additionally, some work is needed to make commands like this work with pre- and postnotes (\citeG[see][86]{sigfridsson}). Finally, with some styles commands like this may mess with the citation tracking feature in ways that are unexpected. – moewe Jan 11 '20 at 07:22