LibGuides: LaTeX for Publications: Creating a Bibliography

Create a Basic LaTeX Bibliography

Basic Bibliography

Although this is the "simple" approach, it may not be the best choice for some users. This bibliography must be created completely by hand, within the text of the .tex file. Everything is done by hand, including the sorting, italicizing text where appropriate, etc. If you have only a few references, this is the simplest way to go.

If you have a long list of references—and if you may be writing more than one paper or article on this topic, you will save time with a bibliography that uses references stored in a separate file. It also gives the author more choices regarding the appearance of the bibliography.

To create a basic bibliography, we do not need to add any packages . We will use the thebibliography environment:

\begin{thebibliography}{9999}

\bibitem{Harris19}

Harris, Kathleen I., "Fred Rogers and Children's Spirituality: Valuing the Uniqueness of Others and Caring for Others.” \emph{International Journal of Children’s Spirituality}, vol. 24, no. 2, May 2019, pp. 140–54. \emph{EBSCOhost}, https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2019.1619526.

\bibitem{Hutchison21}

Hutchison, Phillip J. "Mister Rogers' Holy Ground: Exploring the Media Phenomenology of the Neighborhood and Its Rituals." \emph{Journal of Media & Religion}, vol. 20, no. 2, Apr. 2021, pp. 65-78 \emph{EBSCOhost}, https://doi.org/10.1080/15348423.2021.1925464.

\end{thebibliography}

For More Information

A very good explanation of the basic bibliography is available, entitled "LaTeX Bibliography Management". This chapter covers the options with a basic bibliography, as well as in-document citations. It's part of the wikibook: LaTeX.

Add a Bibliography Using BibTex (Overleaf)

BibTeX allows you to create a bibliography as a separate file. It also gives you more control over the bibliography. It's really not much more difficult than a bibliography contained within your document. A full explanation of BibTeX can be found online in the LaTeX wikibook.

A BibTeX file is a list of item descriptions. Here's an entry for an article:

@article{hutchison21,
    author  = "Alexandra C. Klarén",
    title   = "Won’t You Be My Neighbor?",
    year    = "2017",
    journal = "Communication Quarterly",
    volume  = "65",
    number  = "1",
    pages   = "60--79"
}

Note: The @article{} entry type is just one of many—book, inproceeding (conference), manual, phdthesis, etc.—recognized by BibTeX.

Create a BibTex File in Overleaf

BibTex files can be used with LaTeX documents, whether created with Overleaf or with some other editor. Using BibTex gives you increased control over how our bibliography will look. You can also use citation features of databases to produce the BibTex entries for you to simply copy/paste into your bibliography.

At the top of the left side, click the New File icon.
The Add Files window should open. Type the filename of your bibliography. Make sure it ends with the .bib file extension—in this example, the file is myrefs.bib.
Click Create.