How to change Biblatex Biber citation style to APA?

Question

I have the following article in the library.bib

@article{bonder2012comparing,
    Author = {Bonder, Marc J and Abeln, Sanne and Zaura, Egija and Brandt, Bernd W}, 
    Date-Added = {2014-09-28 12:38:22 +0000},
    Date-Modified = {2014-09-28 12:38:22 +0000},
    Journal = {Bioinformatics},
    Number = {22},
    Pages = {2891--2897},
    Publisher = {Oxford Univ Press},
    Title = {Comparing clustering and pre-processing in taxonomy analysis},
    Volume = {28},
    Year = {2012}}

When printing bibliography, I get the following which confuses with citing from a book because there is "In:" and I have never seen a citation like this before.

Marc J Bonder, Sanne Abeln, Egija Zaura, and Bernd W Brandt. “Comparing clustering and pre-processing in taxonomy analysis.” In: Bioinformatics 28.22 (2012), pp. 2891–2897.

How can make it follow the APA citation style such as the following?

Marc J Bonder, Sanne Abeln, Egija Zaura, and Bernd W Brandt (2012). Comparing clustering and pre-processing in taxonomy analysis. Bioinformatics 28.22, 2891–2897.

This is the commands I am using right now. I have been reading the manual from biber and biblatex but wasn't able to figure out how to change the citation style.

\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage[babel]{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=authoryear,maxcitenames=1,maxbibnames=10,backend=biber]{biblatex}
\DeclareLanguageMapping{american}{american-apa}


\let\citep\cite
\let\cite\parencite

\makeatletter

\newrobustcmd*{\parentexttrack}[1]{%
  \begingroup
  \blx@blxinit
  \blx@setsfcodes
  \blx@bibopenparen#1\blx@bibcloseparen
  \endgroup}

\AtEveryCite{%
  \let\parentext=\parentexttrack%
  \let\bibopenparen=\bibopenbracket%
  \let\bibcloseparen=\bibclosebracket}

\makeatother

\addbibresource{library.bib}

% some other sections %
% ... %

\printbibliography[heading=bibintoc,title={References}]{}

thanks! I tried using biblatex-apa and apparently it's okay now. Wonder why didn't think of that before. — dresden, Jun 12 '15 at 13:37
@Johannes_B Well, I suppose that is the answer, then. Mind posting it? — moewe, Jun 13 '15 at 05:35
@moewe But, i don't know, it is ... just ... Ähm ... so simple. To give an answer with a bit of backround, i don't have the knowledge. And i don't like APA. — Johannes_B, Jun 13 '15 at 09:38
@Johannes_B It might not be the most involved answer ever written. But then it does seem to have solved the OP's problem. Plus, I wouldn't have thought that there would be a lot of background required here. Certainly not more than you could provide (which is quite a bit; I imagine). — moewe, Jun 13 '15 at 19:44
@Johannes_B Thank you. You even thought about the language mapping. That is quite some important background right there. — moewe, Jun 13 '15 at 20:02

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 13 '15 at 19:55

Many people have to cite according to the rules of the American Psychological Society (APA). As there are many rules and biblatex is a quite powerful package, Philip Kime¹ decided to put it in a package for the convenience of many users, called biblatex-apa.

The package (or rather biblatex styles) handles like any other biblatex related package. Just use style=apa. Important, but often forgotten, is the loading the extra language definitions in the preamble.

\DeclareLanguageMapping{american}{american-apa}

If any non-APA things or other strange things are noticed, you can open an Issue at the github repository biblatex-apa. Especially language files can be tricky.

¹ Also deeply involved in the development of biblatex and biber.

How to change Biblatex Biber citation style to APA?

1 Answers1