Using "et al" for bibtex bibliography entries with more than x authors

[Hendrik]

Hi there,

Most journals require that literature references state up to three or
four authors and use "et al." if there are more. My bibtex files
currently list all the others on each paper. Is there an easy way to
make bibtex automatically restrict the bibliography entry to a maximum
of three authors? The standard bibtex styles do not seem to provide a
solution.

I wouldn't want to change the bib file for this -- as I understand, the
bibtex file should be a general database, not specific to the
requirements of a particular journal.

thanks
Hendrik

[William Oquendo]

Hi.

Your question is very important for me. I have put on google "bibtex and et al" and I have got the following result (among others)
http://www.geocities.com/kijoo2000/bibtex_guide.pdf
This is a guide with examples for bibtex, and what you are looking for is the command citet.

Hope this helps. Bye

--
William Oquendo
Physicist, National University of Colombia
Master in Physics student
Simulation Of Physical Systems Group
Linux User # 321481
*********************
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    If it stinks -- it is Chemistry.
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Finagle's Third Law:
        In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct,
        beyond all need of checking, is the mistake.

Corollaries:
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        2. The first person who stops by, whose advice you really
           don't want to hear, will see it immediately.
*********************

[Hendrik]

> > Most journals require that literature references state up to three or
> > four authors and use "et al." if there are more. My bibtex files
> > currently list all the others on each paper. Is there an easy way to
> > make bibtex automatically restrict the bibliography entry to a maximum
> > of three authors? The standard bibtex styles do not seem to provide a
> > solution.

I have found that the package makebst actually offers this facility.
You can create your own bst styles without having to learn the bst
programming language. It leads you through a whole catalogue of
questions on how you want your references formatted and writes a bst
file as result.

cheers
Hendrik