What type of entries should the bibliography file in this Overleaf template have?

Question

I'm trying to use this template in Overleaf.

However, when I compile the code, I get everything except the reference section...

Since, in the overleaf link, nothing is said about the bibliography type of entry, I've tried using something like

@article{IMF09,
    author        = {{International Monetary Fund}},
    title         = {World Economic Outlook: Crisis and Recovery},
    year          = {2009},
    institution   = {International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.}
}

But it then asks to import biblatex package, and then a whole slew of commands must be added/changed...

The mere fact that you add this .bib entry should not automatically cause (La)TeX to want to import biblatex. The .bib entry is syntactically well formed and can be used with BibTeX and biblatex. (Semantically it can be improved, but that is the point of my answer.) — moewe, May 19 '20 at 06:53

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 18 '20 at 18:21

First of all, the template loads the IEEE class IEEEtran but then uses the outdated (and I think unofficial) ieeetr bibliography style. IEEEtran comes with its own set of official bibliography styles, so you should look into using \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}. (In fact that does not matter too much for the question at hand...)

In general I recommend not using publisher/journal classes like IEEEtran unless you plan to submit to that publisher/journal. In which case you should use the class exactly as documented.

Grey literature like this would normally not use the @article entry type. Only papers published in an academic journal should be @articles (@article is also OK for articles in non-academic journals, magazines and newspapers).

For reports like this, the best choice is usually @techreport. btxdoc says the following about @techreport

techreport A report published by a school or other institution, usually numbered within a series. Required fields: author, title, institution, year. Optional fields: type, number, address, month, note

In case of https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2016/12/31/World-Economic-Outlook-April-2009-Crisis-and-Recovery-22575 I'd probably go with

\documentclass{IEEEtran}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@techreport{imf09,
  author = {{International Monetary Fund}},
  title  = {World Economic Outlook, {April} 2009: Crisis and Recovery},
  year   = {2009},
  type   = {World Economic and Financial Surveys},
}
\end{filecontents}


\begin{document}
\cite{imf09}
\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

You'll notice that I didn't include the (according to btxdoc) required field institution, because that would result in a doubled 'International Monetary Fund', which I found awkward

@techreport{imf09,
  author      = {{International Monetary Fund}},
  title       = {World Economic Outlook, {April} 2009: Crisis and Recovery},
  year        = {2009},
  type        = {World Economic and Financial Surveys},
  institution = {International Monetary Fund},
  address     = {Washington, D.C.},
}

Thanks for the answer. I still have one question, though. When compiling, do I need to also run biblatex with your answer? — An old man in the sea., May 19 '20 at 06:45
@Anoldmaninthesea. Yes-ish. The working code I posted would be compiled with LaTeX, BibTeX, LaTeX, LaTeX (where "LaTeX" is your favourite flavour of LaTeX: pdfLaTeX, LuaLaTeX, XeLaTeX, ...; note that you need to run BibTeX, which is a program, and not biblatex, which is a LaTeX package). Many editors run a sequence like this automatically for you. Overleaf will run the required commands automatically when you click recompile. Note that I only used filecontents to be able to make the example self contained. In a real-world document you would add the entry to your normal .bib file. — moewe, May 19 '20 at 06:50
But the gist of the answer (use @techreport) also applies when you generate your bibliography with biblatex (and consequently run LaTeX, Biber, LaTeX, LaTeX). — moewe, May 19 '20 at 06:51
When I compile your answer with bib(la)tex, in texmaker, I get the following error message «Process started
INFO - This is Biber 2.13 INFO - Logfile is 'MWE.blg'

ERROR - Cannot find 'MWE.bcf'! INFO - ERRORS: 1

Process exited with error(s)» — An old man in the sea., May 19 '20 at 07:02
@Anoldmaninthesea. As I say: You need to compile this code with BibTeX. Apparently you are running Biber (which can only be used with biblatex; see the INFO - This is Biber 2.13). The gist of the answer can also be applied to biblatex, but the template you showed used BibTeX, so my full example code uses that as well. You can load biblatex in your document and use only the .bib code I've shown with biblatex. Or you can configure your editor to run BibTeX instead of Biber (essentially by following https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/154751/35864 backwards). — moewe, May 19 '20 at 07:04

What type of entries should the bibliography file in this Overleaf template have?

1 Answers1