Problems with website formatting in apacite's reference page

Question

This is a very specific problem, but it's driving me crazy. I'd like my output to look like this:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number, page range. Retrieved from http://www.someaddress.com/full/url/

With the url the same font as the reference and without a period at the end of the reference.

My problem is that I'm getting either the url in a different font or a period at the end of the reference.

My bib file looks something like this:

@article{ rospa,
  year = {n.d.},
  title = {Seat Belts: A short history},
  journal = {The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents},
  howpublished = {Retrieved March 7, 2014, from
    http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adviceandinformation/vehiclesafety/
    in-carsafetycrash-worthiness/seat-belt-history.aspx}
}

@article{ ehow,
  author = {Sefcik, Lisa},
  title = {Seat belt law history},
  journal = {eHow},
  url = {http://www.ehow.com/facts\_5008257\_seat-belt-law-history.html},
  urldate = {March 7, 2014},
  year = {n.d,}
}

And my tex file looks something like this:

\documentclass[man, apacite]{apa6}
\AtBeginDocument{\urlstyle{APACsame}}
\author{weirdesky}
\title{test}
\shorttitle{test}
\begin{document}
  \maketitle
  \cite{rospa}
  \cite{ehow}
  \bibliography{test}
\end{document}

And I get the rospa citation with a period at the end and the ehow citation with the url in a weird font.

I looked around and found \urlstyle{same} with apacite , and tried using the solution (although I don't know what it really does), but it didn't work. Is there a way around this, or am I going to have to use the literal section?

I tried using \bibnodot{.}, but I get an undefined control sequence error.

Answer 1

\documentclass[man,apacite]{apa6}
\usepackage{url}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
    @article{ rospa,
      year = {n.d.},
      title = {Seat Belts: A short history},
      journal = {The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents},
      url = {http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adviceandinformation/vehiclesafety/
        in-carsafetycrash-worthiness/seat-belt-history.aspx}
    }

    @article{ ehow,
      author = {Sefcik, Lisa},
      title = {Seat belt law history},
      journal = {eHow},
      url = {http://www.ehow.com/facts\_5008257\_seat-belt-law-history.html},
      urldate = {March 7, 2014},
      year = {n.d,}
    }
\end{filecontents}
\author{weirdesky}
\title{test}
\shorttitle{test}
\begin{document}
  \maketitle
  \cite{rospa}
  \cite{ehow}
  \urlstyle{rm}% modify as appropriate
  \bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

Answer 2

In order to use \bibnodot{.} you need to have \usepackage{apacdoc} in your preamble. E.g. for titles that end with punctuation, it does what's required. Although note that titles that end with question marks seem to be processed just fine without this special treatment.

In LaTeX:

\usepackage{apacite}            % APA style citations
\usepackage{apacdoc}

In BibTeX:

@book{gabriel2002writer,
  Author = {Gabriel, Richard P},
  Publisher = {Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc.},
  Title = {{W}riter's {W}orkshops and the {W}ork of {M}aking {T}hings: {P}atterns, {P}oetry$\ldots$\bibnodot{.}},
  Year = {2002}}