Manual bibliography with textual citation

Question

I need to create a manual bibliography, in order to follow very precise layout guidelines. Here's what I'm wrote to the end of my .tex file:

    \begin{thebibliography}{1}
      \bibitem{balassy}
         Balassy Z., Huszar I., Csizmadia B. (1989): Determination of Poisson’s ratio in elastic oedometer, 4th ICPPAM Int. Conf., Rostock, Proceeding, Vol. 1, pp. 26-30.
    \end{thebibliography}

How can I textually cite from this manually bibliography like: (Balassy et al., 1989)? (and I would like to number the element of the bibliography with brakcets- e.g. [1])

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

You seem to want to manually format citations, and also to have them numeric, while being able to cite some sort of author or other aspect. The below idea is not generally recommended but I think does occasionally have its uses in unusual documents.

You mean like this? -- here is how to use free format bibliography items (the file example.bib would normally be external but here it is embedded within the example). However you are going to find it impossible to extract parts of it as you suggest. It is surely a lot easier just to craft an appropriate output for properly entered data, than to parse your free-form entry.

If your text citation is going to be consistent for each entry you could manually insert that into a different field and use that directly. I have appropriated the abstract field for this purpose below.

\documentclass [12pt]{article}

\usepackage[citestyle=numeric,
    sorting=none] % List citation in order they appear
    {biblatex}

\DeclareCiteCommand{\citeabstract}
  {\boolfalse{citetracker}%
   \boolfalse{pagetracker}%
   \usebibmacro{prenote}}
  {\printfield{abstract}}
  {\multicitedelim}
  {\usebibmacro{postnote}}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents*}{example.bib}

@BIBNOTE{note:alien,
  note = {Smith, P \& Benn, J 2012, This is a freeform reference, Panamanian Journal of Toenail Clippings},
}

@BIBNOTE{note:bassnote,
  note = {This is just a note but could be a reference if you like and bits could be \textbf{bold for} example},
}

@BIBNOTE{note:note44,
  note = {Blogs, P \& Frog, J 2012, This is a freeform reference, Panamanian Journal of Hairball Research},
  abstract =  {(Blogs \& Frog, 2012)}
}

\end{filecontents*}

\bibliography{example}

\begin{document}

Beware the Jabberwock my son\cite{note:note44}, the jaws that bite\cite{note:bassnote,note:alien}. 

This takes the abstract field for\cite{note:note44} and punches it out \citeabstract{note:note44}.

\printbibliography

\end{document} 

Answer 2

You'll need to

• load the natbib citation management package with options round and authoryear:

  \usepackage[round, authoryear]{natbib}
  

• add an "optional" argument, in square brackets, to each and every bibitem, e.g.,

  \begin{thebibliography}{1}
  
  \bibitem[Balassy \emph{et~al.}(1989)]{balassy}
   Balassy Z., Huszar I., Csizmadia B. (1989): Determination of Poisson’s ratio in elastic oedometer, 4th ICPPAM Int.\ Conf., Rostock, Proceeding, Vol.~1, pp.\ 26--30.
  
  \end{thebibliography}
  

and

• use \citep{balassy} to generate the desired "parenthetical" citation call-out; use \citet for "textual" citation call-outs.

Notes: (a) no space before (1989) in the optional argument of \bibitem; (b) leave a blank one above and below each \bibitem; (c) if you must number the bib entries, say from [1] to [n], the formatted numbers can be entered immediately after each bibitem key (the argument in curly braces).