Bibliography in APA style problems

Question

While writing my proposal, I am struggling with setting my bibliography to APA-format. Currently, I use the following code:

Font

\documentclass[onecolumn, 9pt, a4 paper]{proposal}
%\usepackage[english]{babel}   
%\usepackage{fontspec}
% PAGE MARGINS
\usepackage[top=2.54cm, bottom=2.54cm, left=3.17cm, right=3.17cm]{geometry}
% FONT (similar to Verdana)
\usepackage[lf]{berenis}
\renewcommand*\familydefault{\sfdefault} 
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
%graphs
\usepackage{graphicx}
\graphicspath{figs}
%bibliography
\usepackage[backend=biber, style=numeric, citestyle=apa ]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{sample.bib}

Does someone see the error?

Welcome to TeX.SX! Can you provide more details on what is not working? Is there an error when you try to compile? If so, what is the error? Also, while the code you already provided is helpful, it would really be more helpful if you provided a complete example that others can compile to see what's going on. — Vincent, Nov 03 '20 at 16:17

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 03 '20 at 16:16

1

The problem is the 'mixed' style setup in

\usepackage[backend=biber, style=numeric, citestyle=apa ]{biblatex}

That line effectively requests a numeric bibliography style but APA citations. That doesn't work particularly well (because biblatex-apa effectively assumes it is used as both bibliography and citation style, but even if it didn't do that, the result would still be odd).

For proper APA style you probably want a biblatex setup like

\documentclass[american]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber, style=apa]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
\begin{document}
Lorem \autocite{sigfridsson}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

answered Nov 03 '20 at 16:16

moewe

175,683

I changed the following in the code: %bibliography \usepackage{csquotes} \usepackage[backend=biber, style=apa]{biblatex} \addbibresource{sample.bib} This still gives me not a propper reference list. The references looklike [Bar-09] Any suggestions? – Jelmer Visser Nov 03 '20 at 16:23
@JelmerVisser As shown in the screenshot, this should produce APA citations. Can you please try to run the exact code I posted (without modification, even to the .bib file, biblatex-examples.bib should be installed on your machine and will be found automatically) and tell me what output you get. If something is going wrong you should get warnings or errors. What do they look like? – moewe Nov 03 '20 at 16:40
By the code for my bibliography is now the following: \usepackage{csquotes} \usepackage[backend=biber, style=apa]{biblatex} \addbibresource{biblatex-example.bib} \usepackage{csquotes} \usepackage[backend=biber, style=apa]{biblatex} \addbibresource{biblatex-example.bib}
The last rule gets a error, namely: LaTex error: Option clash for package Biblatex.

For the citation in the text, i first used \cite but i changed it to \autocite. In both cases the same error occurs.

Further, bibliography section is defined by \printbibliography.
– Jelmer Visser Nov 04 '20 at 07:54
I wanted to insert a picture of the output of the bibliography, but sadly enough i am not able to. It looks the following: page 3[GJL17]R. Geyer, J. R. Jambeck, and K. L. Law. “Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made”. In:ScienceAdvances3.7 (2017).doi:10.1126/sciadv.1700782. eprint:https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782.full.pdf(cit. on p.1).[Hon+20]D. Honingh, T. van Emmerik, W. Uijttewaal, H. Kardhana, O. Hoes, and N. van de Giesen. “Urban riverwater level increase through plastic waste accumulation at a rack structure”. In:FrEaS8 (2020), p. 28(cit. on p.1). – Jelmer Visser Nov 04 '20 at 08:02
@JelmerVisser Without seeing a fully compilable example document that reproduces the error and shows what you are doing (https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/q/228/35864) it is hard to say what exactly is going wrong, but if you get an option clash error that suggests that you (or some code you load) already load(s) biblatex with different options. Make sure to load each package only once. – moewe Nov 04 '20 at 11:48
I made a compilable example of my code, which you can enter via the following link: https://www.overleaf.com/5935485733qkxzrykwnwrp The set up of this test document is the same as my proposal. Maybe this would clarify my problem. – Jelmer Visser Nov 05 '20 at 08:11
@JelmerVisser The non-standard document class proposal you are loading already loads biblatex and hard-codes a different style. The class does not have an option to change that. I'm afraid you cannot easily make that class use a different bibliography/citation style. I suggest you only use the proposal class if you absolutely have to, in which case you have to accept the output it gives you. – moewe Nov 05 '20 at 12:53
When i change my document class to e.g. article, no bibliography will form at all. Any suggestions? – Jelmer Visser Nov 06 '20 at 09:18
@JelmerVisser You may have to delete the temporary files (clear the cache in Overleaf lingo: https://www.overleaf.com/learn/how-to/Clearing_the_cache). (On a local install you'll also need to make sure to run LaTeX, Biber, LaTeX, LaTeX (https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/154751/35864)). – moewe Nov 06 '20 at 14:23

Bibliography in APA style problems

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