How to change 'et al' to italic font in citation call-outs, with 'agsm' bibliography style

Question

I am using natbib and agsm for harvard-style referencing. My related code is

\usepackage{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{agsm}

Then I am using \citep{} for citations. My problem is that in text I am getting

(Author et al. 2012)

but and I want

(Author et al. 2012)

Does anyone know how to change this and get 'et al' in italics in the text?

I am using TexPad and BibDesk and I have not been able to find the .bst files in Terminal.

I know that it is often correct to have the 'et al.' unitalicised but my university regulations requires italics.

Answer 1

I suggest you proceed as follows:

• Find the file agsm.bst in your TeX distribution. Make a copy of the file and call the copy, say, agsmemph.bst. (Don't edit an original file of your TeX distribution directly.)

• Open the file agsmemph.bst in your favorite text editor -- the one you use to edit your tex files will do fine.

• Do a global search and replacement of et~al. with \emph{et~al.}. There should be five such instances.

• Save the file agsmemph.bst either in the directory where your main tex file is located or in a directory that's searched by BibTeX. If you choose the latter option, be sure to also update the filename database of your TeX distribution appropriately.

• In your main tex file, change the argument of \bibliographystyle from agsm to agsmemph and perform a full recompile cycle -- LaTeX, BibTeX, LaTeX, LaTeX -- to fully propagate all changes.

Happy BibTeXing!

\RequirePackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{mybib.bib}
@misc{abcd,
  author = "Anne Author and Bertha Buthor and Carla Cuthor and Doris Duthor",
  title  = "Thoughts",
  year   = 3001,
}
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{agsmemph} %  <-- 'agsmemph' is being used

\begin{document}
\citet{abcd}
\bibliography{mybib}
\end{document}