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I'm writing the bibliography of my report with thebibliography because I don't need a BibTeX database (or I don't have the time for learn how to customize or write a style).

The optional argument [label] specifies how the reference will be cited in my main text. Here's my reference definition:

\bibitem[PNUD1996]{PNUD1996} PNUD. Desarrollo Humano en Chile 1996. Santiago: PNUD, 1996.

If I write: in \cite{PNUD1996}. it produces:

in [PNUD1996].

But the label also appears in the bibliography:

[PNUD1996] PNUD. Desarrollo Humano en Chile 1996. Santiago: PNUD, 1996.

Can I remove the label from the bibliography and keep it in the reference? I mean, to get:

in [PNUD1996].

and

PNUD. Desarrollo Humano en Chile 1996. Santiago: PNUD, 1996.

Quentin Pradet
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Tae
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    hey, I think it would be a lot faster to do it in bibtex. You dont have to learn how to write or customise a variable, you just have to download the right software (I recommend JabRef if you are using windows and BibDesk if you are using a mac). The part you will have to write in the latex file will be a lot easier than what you are trying to do with *thebibliography* – Vivi Jun 09 '10 at 01:25
  • If you remove the labels, how then can the reader find the correct reference in the bibliography? – rcollyer Jun 09 '10 at 02:58
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    @rcollyer I use references like: __Boisier,__ __2003__ which match with the information of the items in the bibliography. If there're two publications with the same year and author, I use: __Boisier,__ __2003a__. It is pretty standard in Chile. – Tae Jun 09 '10 at 23:03

2 Answers2

11
\makeatletter
\def\@biblabel#1{}
\makeatother

in the preamble will do it.

Quentin Pradet
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Joseph Wright
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If you use one of the author-data citation systems, such as Harvard or apalike, then there is no key displayed in the bibliography, and readers look up source in the reflist using the information in the body of the items, just as you want. You can mix and match: you can use one BST file to generate the reflist, and an unrelated set of Latex macros to generate citations in the body of your document.

Your example is a little eccentric: you look up items based on author and date, but the author information and date are not together at the start of the bibitem, but occur widely separated. This makes it somewhat more time-consuming to look up citations; it's not unprecedented: the ISO 690 bibliography style splits the information in this way, and there are journals that use author-date referencing with it. But if you have a choice, I'd avoid doing things this way.

Charles Stewart
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  • Thanks for the advice. In the university where I study they let us choose between APA Style or ISO 690, so I'll switch to APA. The other thing I'm worried about is that I'm writing in Spanish, so I'll look for a Spanish version of apalike. – Tae Jun 09 '10 at 23:47
  • @Tae: I think there isn't anything in CTAN: if there were, it should be under http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/biblio/bibtex/contrib/. What needs changing? Is it just changing the "and" to "y"? That's a rather easy change to apalike.sty to make. – Charles Stewart Jun 10 '10 at 07:53