Misplaced alignment tab in a reference EUSFLAT2019 template

Question

Here is a reference I am using as following

\bibitem{dhanl}
Y.~Dhanalakshmi, I.~R. Babu, “intrusion detection using data mining along fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms,” international journal of computer science & security, vol. 8, no.2, pp. 27–32, 2008.

this is in a file EUSFLAT2019_template.bbl

this is the corresponding entry in BIBeusflat2019.bib

@article{dhanl,
    author={Y. Dhanalakshmi, and I. Ramesh Babu,},
    title={“Intrusion detection using data
    mining along fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms,” International Journal
    of Computer Science & Security, vol. 8, no.2, pp. 27–32, 2008}
}

I am doing all this in a template downloaded from here https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/eusflat-2019-template/jmqvcrhkqhgx the error I am getting is

Misplaced alignment tab character &. ...nternational journal of computer science &

what is the problem in above? I am using TeXStudio here is how it looks like

Answer 1

& has a special meaning: it's an alignment tab character in tables. To typeset the character “&” you have to escape it: \&. Even in bibliography entries, special characters should always be escaped (to the exception of some fields, like url, which treat the contents as verbatim, depending on what packages you have loaded).

That said, your bib entry defeats the entire purpose of bib files. You have all the bibliography data jammed into the title field, which is plain wrong. Use the proper fields for the journal, volume, pages, and year, and your bibliography will be correctly formatted:

@article{dhanl,
  author = {Y. Dhanalakshmi and I. Ramesh Babu},
  title = {Intrusion detection using data mining along fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms},
  journal = {International Journal of Computer Science \& Security},
  volume = {8},
  issue = {2},
  pages = {27--32},
  year = {2008}
}