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Sorry for the newbie question, but I have been trying to resolve the problem of citations not showing up with texstudio. Below is a sample of my tex code

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
\usepackage[table,xcdraw]{xcolor}
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{chemfig}
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=mla]{biblatex}
\restylefloat{table}

\bibliography{EnzymeLabCitation} %opening \title{Sample Title} \author{Me} \date{}

\begin{document} This is an example sentence with citation \cite{Polysaccharides} \printbibliography \end{document}

with the following in the file EnzymeLabCitation.bib

@misc{Polysaccharides,
month = {mar},
title = {{Polysaccharides}},
url = {https://chem.libretexts.org/@go/page/17529},
year = {2016}
}
@misc{Starch_Iodine,
month = {mar},
title = {{Starch and Iodine}},
url = {https://chem.libretexts.org/@go/page/383},
year = {2020}
}
@misc{Ololade2021,
author = {Ololade, Akinfemiwa and Thiruvengadam, Muniraj},
booktitle = {Startpearls Publishing},
title = {{Amylase}},
url = {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557738/},
urldate = {2021-03-21},
year = {2021}
}
@misc{Amylase,
booktitle = {Britannica},
publisher = {Britannica},
title = {{Amylase}},
year = {2020}
}
@incollection{Kaphalia2019,
abstract = {Advanced stages of chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancers (PCs) are very serious diseases with very poor prognosis. Therefore, identification of reliable and specific biomarker(s) at early stages of the diseases could be key to their early prevention and therapy. In this chapter, currently used and putative biomarkers of acute and chronic pancreatitis and PC are summarized. Total serum lipase and/or amylase are most widely used biomarkers of acute pancreatitis; lipase assay being more sensitive and specific than that of amylase. Imaging technologies provide key support for the diagnosis of both acute and chronic pancreatitis. Biomarkers of chronic pancreatitis are poorly developed and remain challenging because of impaired secretory components of exocrine pancreas. The focus of future clinical diagnosis of chronic pancreatitis and PC lies in identification of biomarkers using omics and microRNA arrays along with imaging technologies in well-defined experimental models and their validation in patients diagnosed with various stages of chronic pancreatitis and PC.},
author = {Kaphalia, Bhupendra S},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-814655-2.00019-0},
editor = {Gupta, Ramesh C B T - Biomarkers in Toxicology (Second Edition)},
isbn = {978-0-12-814655-2},
keywords = {Acute pancreatitis,Chronic pancreatitis,Diagnostic biomarkers,Functional biomarkers,Pancreatic cancer},
pages = {341--353},
publisher = {Academic Press},
title = {{Chapter 19 - Early Biomarkers of Acute and Chronic Pancreatitis}},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128146552000190},
year = {2019}
}
@misc{Williams2019,
    author = {Williams, John},
    booktitle = {Pancreapedia: Exocrine Pancreas Knowledge Base},
    doi = {10.3998/panc.2019.02},
    title = {{Amylase}},
    url = {https://www.pancreapedia.org/molecules/amylase-2},
    urldate = {March 21st, 2021},
    year = {2019}
}

With this, the document simply shows the word Polysaccharides instead of the citation, and the title 'Works Cited' does show up, but not the sources. I have been trying to run it in overleaf, and no luck either. I am quite confused and would appreciate all help (I am using Texstudio as the main text editor).

  • Nope! Still didn't work... – Je-Yu Chou Mar 21 '21 at 14:08
  • TeXstudio is a front end to various executables, packages, font files, and a multitude of auxiliary items which, taken together, make up a TeX distribution. Do please tell us which TeX distribution is installed on your system and when it was last updated. – Mico Mar 21 '21 at 14:11
  • Ummm, I am completely new to this, so please tell me if you need more info. I am using version 3.0.1 and Qt version 5.10.0 – Je-Yu Chou Mar 21 '21 at 14:14
  • Do please tell us what happens to the citation call-outs if you replace \bibliography{EnzymeLabCitation} with \addbibresource{EnzymeLabCitation.bib} and then run a full recompile cycle -- LaTeX, biber, and LaTeX once more. (Use the instructions in @ivan's comment to alternate between LaTeX and biber.) – Mico Mar 21 '21 at 14:15
  • To repeat: TeXstudio is not a TeX distribution; it's a front end to a TeX distribution. 3.0.1. is presumably the version of TeXstudio. However, that's NOT an answer to the question I asked. I asked you for information about the TeX distribution that's on your system. Oh, and what is "Qt"? – Mico Mar 21 '21 at 14:16
  • 1
    Okay, update. After changing to \addbibresource{EnzymeLabCitation.bib}, all citations seem to work properly. However, at the works cited page, only one reference appeared... – Je-Yu Chou Mar 21 '21 at 14:34
  • I don't know how to check the tex distribution... And I have no idea what Qt is, it just says that on the About Texstudio page – Je-Yu Chou Mar 21 '21 at 14:35
  • 1
    In your example you cite only one work, so the works cited should only show on entry. Only those entries from your .bib file that you actually \cited get added to the bibliography. If you want to add entries without citing, use \nocite{<entrykey>} (to let <entrykey> appear in the bibliography) or \nocite{*} (to have all entries from the .bib file appear in the bibliography). – moewe Mar 21 '21 at 14:43
  • Umm, I tried, and it didn't work. I also don't think it is working correctly, as when I changed 'style=mla' to 'style=apa', it only added quotation marks and no dates. So... – Je-Yu Chou Mar 21 '21 at 14:47
  • What do the first two lines of the log file say? (If your main tex file is called main.tex, the log file's name is main.log.) – Mico Mar 21 '21 at 14:47
  • Sorry, what exactly did you try? And how did it not work? Note that whenever you add or remove citations or change the bibliography style, you need to run LaTeX once, then Biber and then LaTeX again (at least once) for all changes to take effect. (When I say "run LaTeX" I mean that you run your favourite flavour of LaTeX, which can be pdfLaTeX, LuaLaTeX, XeLaTeX. You probably have button to compile in your editor - that's what I mean.) – moewe Mar 21 '21 at 14:50
  • 1
    It says: 'This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.21 (TeX Live 2020) (preloaded format=pdflatex 2020.4.7) 21 MAR 2021 22:44 entering extended mode' – Je-Yu Chou Mar 21 '21 at 14:50
  • Umm, I did what Ivan said... But I do have multiple entries in BibTex (all generated with Mendeley) – Je-Yu Chou Mar 21 '21 at 14:53
  • I'm still a bit confused. In a comment above you said that you got citation output and your document showed one entry in the works cited. This is the expected output from the code you have shown so far. If you want more entries in the bibliography, you need to cite more entries or need to use \nocite. If you add new citations to your .tex file, you need to compile again as explained by Ivan. Maybe you can update your question with the code changes you did and show a screenshot of the output. – moewe Mar 21 '21 at 15:14
  • Thanks for the suggestion, I have updated the .bib file to reflect the true amount of sources. I also tried the \nocite, but the output is the same... – Je-Yu Chou Mar 21 '21 at 15:21
  • So your TeX distribution is TeXLive 2020. – Mico Mar 21 '21 at 16:20
  • Ah, biblatex-mla does not support the @misc entry type (see e.g. https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/377460/35864 and https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/369696/35864). That is a very odd choice, so I would probably try to avoid biblatex-mla (not least because I find MLA style itself a bit odd). If you must use biblatex-mla, you could try \DeclareBibliographyAlias{misc}{online} but the results aren't that great either. (It gets slightly better with style=mla-new instead of style=mla.) – moewe Mar 21 '21 at 16:37
  • Thank you for helping me with this! This is much appreciated. Did you happen to find any citation style that is compatible with @misc entry type? – Je-Yu Chou Mar 21 '21 at 16:41
  • Okay, Chicago-author-date seemed to work for me – Je-Yu Chou Mar 21 '21 at 16:47
  • Basically any other biblatex style supports @misc, so my go-to choice would be something like style=authoryear,. I'd only use biblatex-chicago if Chicago style is required. – moewe Mar 21 '21 at 18:06