How to add extra field to biblatex?

Question

Using biblatex

\usepackage[style=ieee, backend=bibtex]{biblatex}

And I am trying to add publisher to the phd type but it does not add it.

@phdthesis{phd,
  author = "Me",
  title = "My Title",
  school = "My University",
  year = 2020,
  publisher= "Fubar",
  type     = {PHD}
 }

How do I add publisher to my reference?

Have you tried note= "Fubar" instead of publisher= "Fubar"? Aside: Most Ph.D. dissertations don't have publishers. If yours is published in book form, you may want to consider switching from the @phdthesis entry type to the @book entry type. — Mico, Aug 10 '20 at 19:07

phil-elkabat · Answer 1 · 2020-08-11T07:41:05.133

0

I wouldn't use @phdthesis and choose @thesis instead (but for this example I'm going to use @phdthesis). Also I would recommend dropping bibtex as backend and instead employ biber.

Your problem can be solved by assigning a type and a note to the thesis-entry:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\begin{filecontents}[overwrite]{demo-phd.bib}
@phdthesis{phd,
  author = {Lastname, Firstname},
  title = {Awesome Title},
  school = {Some University},
  year = {2020},
  publisher= {Fubar},
  type = {Published by Fubar},
  note = {Ph.D. dissertation}
 }
\end{filecontents}
\usepackage[style=ieee, backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{demo-phd.bib}
\begin{document}
\section{Introduction}
There is this great thesis I'd really like to quote: \autocite{phd}
\printbibliography
\end{document}
\end{document}

edited Aug 11 '20 at 07:41

answered Aug 10 '20 at 19:06

phil-elkabat

2,055

It's a bit meh that you essentially have to invert the fields note and type here to get a nicer output. (Generally type would contain something like 'PhD thesis' and not would be for further notes.) An alternative for note could be addendum or in this case even pubstate. Those fields are printed after type. – moewe Aug 11 '20 at 15:02
@phdthesis is a (legacy/convenience) alias in biblatex. It gets mapped to @thesis with type = {phdthesis}, (only if the type field is empty, if it is present it is not overwritten). So in your MWE it doesn't matter if you use @thesis or @phdthesis, since you give the type yourself, but in general @phdthesis is a bit shorter than specifying type = {phdthesis}, if you use @thesis. – moewe Aug 11 '20 at 15:04
@moewe, pubstate is placed last (even after the year), so there would be tweaking involved. With addendum it's the same story, so I best delete the anwer altogether. Would you agree? – phil-elkabat Aug 11 '20 at 15:05
The question is whether it is bad that the publisher info is placed after the year. I don't see any specification about the exact place in the question. I wouldn't have a problem with having an addendum like 'published by ...' after the year. But I think that your inversion of type and note, while semantically questionable, gives much better output than if you had stuck to the more semantically sound type = {phdthesis}, note = {Ph.D. dissertation}. Sometimes it can be useful to abuse the semantics a bit if you are aware of the fact that you are doing it. – moewe Aug 11 '20 at 15:14
@moewe, I really like the gentle way, you keep correcting me. You've also managed to convince me to read the entire biblatex-documentation now. Uhm, thanks for that ;-) – phil-elkabat Aug 11 '20 at 15:16
To be honest, I don't know if reading the biblatex documentation in one go is a good use of anyone's time. For the most part it is a reference that documents all interfaces and commands of the package rather than a user guide. So it won't be a particularly exciting read. Some of the introductions mentioned in https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/13509/35864 also cover intermediate topics and are a much nicer read (I'm especially thinking about Paul Stanley's https://github.com/PaulStanley/biblatex-tutorial) – moewe Aug 11 '20 at 15:31
@moewe, great! I'll check your recommendations out, thank you! – phil-elkabat Aug 11 '20 at 15:41

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 10 '20 at 19:26

In the BibTeX and biblatex tradition theses (@phthesis, @thesis, ...) don't have a publisher. Instead they have a institution or school. Most dissertations can probably be found without giving the publisher (if they are published by a known publishing house at all).

That all said, it is certainly not impossible to add a publisher to theses. You just need to find a good place to hook in to. The bibliography output of the ieee style is based on the standard biblatex style standard.bbx, where the institution of a @thesis is printed in institution+location+date. You can modify that macro to also print a publisher.

\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=ieee]{biblatex}
\renewbibmacro{institution+location+date}{%
  \ifentrytype{thesis}
    {\printlist{publisher}%
     \setunit{\addcomma\space}}
    {}%
  \printlist{location}%
  \iflistundef{institution}
    {\setunit{\addcomma\space}}
    {\setunit{\addcolon\space}}%
  \printlist{institution}%
  \setunit{\addcomma\space}%
  \usebibmacro{date}%
  \newunit}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@phdthesis{phd,
  author    = {Me},
  title     = {My Title},
  school    = {My University},
  year      = 2020,
  publisher = {Fubar},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\begin{document}
Lorem \cite{phd}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

How to add extra field to biblatex?

2 Answers2