Natbib does not show author-year

Question

I have looked for a solution in this forum and elsewhere, but none of the solutions work for me.

Here is my code:

\documentclass[preprint,12pt]{elsarticle}
\usepackage{natbib} 
%\bibliographystyle{abbrvnat}
%\bibliographystyle{plainnat}
\bibliographystyle{unsrtnat}
\biboptions{comma,round}
\usepackage{lineno}
\linenumbers
\begin{document}
test test test \citep{blazek_explainable_2021,woese2004}. 
\bibliography{testref}
\end{document}

My testref.bib file contains these two references:

@article{woese2004,
author = {Carl R. Woese },
title = {A New Biology for a New Century},
journal = {Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews},
volume = {68},
number = {2},
pages = {173-186},
year = {2004},
doi = {10.1128/MMBR.68.2.173-186.2004},
URL = {https://journals.asm.org/doi/abs/10.1128/MMBR.68.2.173-186.2004}
}
@article{blazek_explainable_2021,
    title = {Explainable neural networks that simulate reasoning},
    volume = {1},
    issn = {2662-8457},
    url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s43588-021-00132-w},
    doi = {10.1038/s43588-021-00132-w},
    language = {en},
    number = {9},
    urldate = {2021-10-15},
    journal = {Nature Computational Science},
    author = {Blazek, Paul J. and Lin, Milo M.},
    month = sep,
    year = {2021},
    pages = {607--618},
}

I tried the bibliography styles abbrvnat, unsrtnat and plainnat. But in all cases, I get only a numerical reference test test test (1, 2). I would like the citations to be in the author year format. e.g. (Woese C.R, 2004). Not sure what I'm missing here. Do I need to download the .bst files?

I would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

When loading elsarticle document class, pass the option nonatbib which unloads natbib package. You may then reload it and pass options as you wish. Also, elsarticle-harv does pretty much the style you want in the bibliography entries, but not in citation labels.

MWE

% !TeX document-id = {21024933-f6de-4c80-bd58-6d645072d057}
% !BIB TS-program = bibtex
\begin{filecontents*}{testref.bib}
@article{woese2004,
    author = {Carl R. Woese},
    title = {A New Biology for a New Century},
    journal = {Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews},
    volume = {68},
    number = {2},
    pages = {173-186},
    year = {2004},
    doi = {10.1128/MMBR.68.2.173-186.2004},
    URL = {https://journals.asm.org/doi/abs/10.1128/MMBR.68.2.173-186.2004}
}
@article{blazek_explainable_2021,
    title = {Explainable neural networks that simulate reasoning},
    volume = {1},
    issn = {2662-8457},
    url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s43588-021-00132-w},
    doi = {10.1038/s43588-021-00132-w},
    language = {en},
    number = {9},
    urldate = {2021-10-15},
    journal = {Nature Computational Science},
    author = {Blazek, Paul J. and Lin, Milo M.},
    month = sep,
    year = {2021},
    pages = {607--618},
}
\end{filecontents*}
\documentclass[preprint,12pt,nonatbib]{elsarticle}
\usepackage{natbib}
\setcitestyle{semicolon}
\usepackage{lineno}
\linenumbers
\begin{document}
\citep{woese2004,blazek_explainable_2021}.

\bibliographystyle{elsarticle-harv}
\bibliography{testref.bib}


\end{document}