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Within an amsart document, you can add a bibliography without a BibTeX file, by directly use the \bibitem command inside a begin{thebibliography} clause. See e.g., here.

Had I used BibTeX, I could also use the bibliographystyle{alpha} to change the style. This does not work in the direct citation format using bibitem. Is there a way to enforce a style on the first option?

Also related , but was asked over 5 years ago without a direct solutions.

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Amir Sagiv
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    I think the answer is there's no way, except for the accepted answer in the question you link to. – Alan Munn Aug 13 '20 at 18:51
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    A manual \bibitem is simply you decided on the formatting yourself, that's rather the point – Joseph Wright Aug 13 '20 at 18:51
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    all bibtex does is write the thebibliography environment for you in a style as specified by the bibstyle. If you choose to write the items yourself, then you have full control over the style. – David Carlisle Aug 13 '20 at 18:56
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    @DavidCarlisle if so, can I decide on the style of the bullits (e.g., have [AS00] for a reference instead of [3])? – Amir Sagiv Aug 13 '20 at 19:48
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    @AmirSagiv there is no automation, you can have any label you like \bibitem[zzzwibble]{zzz} any text for this reference – David Carlisle Aug 13 '20 at 19:51
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    A main point of BibTeX is that it permits applying many different bibliography styles (contained in .bst files) to one and the same set of bibliographic entries (contained in .bib files). This is rather convenient if you publish papers with various journals and book publishers, especially if they provide their own .bst files. OTOH, if -- BIG IF!! -- you are certain that you will never, ever have to switch bibliography styles, it's almost certainly not worth learning BibTeX's procedures. Instead, just create thebibliography environments by hand for each and every one of your papers. – Mico Aug 14 '20 at 04:51

1 Answers1

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The easy method to change the style of bibliography made with a thebibliography environment:

  1. Remove the bibliography (yes, the whole thebibliography environment).
  2. Now make the bibliography with bibtex, with the style that you want.
  3. Compile and verify that the references look OK in the PDF.
  4. Replace the \bibliography{...} and \bibliographystyle{...} lines by the whole content of the auxiliar .bbl file, that is just a new thebibliography environment.
  5. Ready! Now you can send to the journal a single .tex file than can be compiled only with pdflatex, xelated or lualatex, without using bibtex.

The hard method to change the style of a thebibliography environment:

  1. Edit each \bibitem manually. It could be a good option if there are only a few references. If thi is not the case, good look ...
Fran
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