compiling bibtex outputs only numbers

Question

I am fairly new to latex, but I have already written a few papers using it on my computer. I am now working on a new computer. I made a regular .bib file and used ~\cite as usual. I compiled it using texworks, but all I got in the end of the pdf document, where the \bibliography tag was at the latex file, is just a list of numbers without the actual text of the authors' name, title etc.

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

The "only numbers" in the bibliography is a typical effect of having syntax errors in the .bib file. A check in the .blg file produced when running BibTeX usually sheds light on the business.

In particular, % character inside bibliographic entries are not comments (they are outside them, for instance at the beginning of the file). In order to comment a field, say note, the best strategy os to change its name; for instance, with

Xnote={Some note we don't want to appear, but we like to have in the file},

the Xnote field will be ignored. Removing the X would turn the field into a good one.