One paragraph style bibliography with numbers

Question

I am writing a document that has a two page limit. I am trying to find a way to make it so that each citation in the bibliography does not start on a new line. This would be sufficient to fit into my page limit.

I am using natbib and bibtex with the "super" (nature-style) citation option. I tried a version of the solution presented in

One paragraph style bibliography

to get this behavior. It works fine when used with author-year style citations, but produces awkward indentation when used with the super (numeric) option (see non-uniform spacing between entries below):

Does anyone know how to configure things so that the entries in the bibliography look flush like this:

but with the dots replaced by the numbers used to refer to each reference in the text?

Thanks!

EDIT:

I invoke natbib with:

\usepackage[super,sort&compress]{natbib}

Then call:

\bibliographystyle{apj_w_etal_3auth}

\usepackage{paralist}

\renewenvironment{thebibliography}[1]{%
\textsc{\textbf{References:}}
\let\par\relax\let\newblock\relax%
\inparaitem[{[}1{]}]}{\endinparaitem}

And here is the style file:

https://gist.github.com/dannygoldstein/b8f77d3e4853ec983209aa8850898fb2

NB that this is a slightly modified version of https://github.com/keflavich/tex_compact_bib. I deleted the "SORT" commands from the original bst file to get the citations to appear non-alphabetically.

Answer 1

Solution in Brief

The \hfil in the arguments of \items which actually render the bibitems is responsible for the horizontal white spaces.

Rendering of bibitems is done by the \@lbibitem command. So, we need to redefine it. One way for this will be to use \renewcommand. But definitely, a smarter way will be to use \patchcmd.

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\patchcmd{\@lbibitem}{\item[\hfil\NAT@anchor{#2}{\NAT@num}]}{\item[\NAT@anchor{#2}{\NAT@num}]}{}{}
\makeatother

---

The Full Code

\documentclass{article}

\bibliographystyle{apj_w_etal_3auth}

\usepackage[super,sort&compress]{natbib}

\usepackage{paralist}

\renewenvironment{thebibliography}[1]{%
\textsc{\textbf{References:}}
\let\par\relax\let\newblock\relax%
\inparaitem[{[}1{]}]}{\endinparaitem}

\usepackage{times}

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\patchcmd{\@lbibitem}{\item[\hfil\NAT@anchor{#2}{\NAT@num}]}{\item[\NAT@anchor{#2}{\NAT@num}]}{}{}
\makeatother

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{einstein,
    author =       "Albert Einstein",
    title =        "{Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter K{\"o}rper}. ({German})
        [{On} the electrodynamics of moving bodies]",
    journal =      "Annalen der Physik",
    volume =       "322",
    number =       "10",
    pages =        "891--921",
    year =         "1905",
    DOI =          "http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/andp.19053221004"
}

@book{latexcompanion,
    author    = "Michel Goossens and Frank Mittelbach and Alexander Samarin",
    title     = "The \LaTeX\ Companion",
    year      = "1993",
    publisher = "Addison-Wesley",
    address   = "Reading, Massachusetts"
}

@article{belloche2014detection,
  title={Detection of a branched alkyl molecule in the interstellar medium: iso-propyl cyanide},
  author={Belloche, Arnaud and Garrod, Robin T and M{\"u}ller, Holger SP and Menten, Karl M},
  journal={Science},
  volume={345},
  number={6204},
  pages={1584--1587},
  year={2014},
  publisher={American Association for the Advancement of Science}
}

@article{mcnally1989anxiety,
  title={Is anxiety sensitivity distinguishable from trait anxiety? Reply to Lilienfeld, Jacob, and Turner (1989).},
  author={McNally, Richard J},
  year={1989},
  publisher={American Psychological Association}
}

\end{filecontents}

\begin{document}

\nocite{*}

\bibliography{\jobname}

% \show\bibitem

% \makeatletter
% \show\@lbibitem
% \makeatother

\end{document}

---

The Output

---

The Sleuthing Activity

An inspection of the .bbl file shows that each bibliographic entry is rendered by a \bibitem.

So, we issue a \show\bibitem inside our source. This gives:

\bibitem=\long macro: ->\@ifnextchar [{\@lbibitem }{\@lbibitem []}.

We delve deeper and look inside \@lbibitem.

\makeatletter
\show\@lbibitem
\makeatother

gives:

\@lbibitem=macro:
[#1]#2->\if \relax \@extra@b@citeb \relax \else \@ifundefined {br@#2\@extra@b@c
iteb }{}{\@namedef {br@#2}{\@nameuse {br@#2\@extra@b@citeb }}}\fi \@ifundefined
 {b@#2\@extra@b@citeb }{\def \NAT@num {}}{\NAT@parse {#2}}\def \NAT@tmp {#1}\ex
pandafter \let \expandafter \bibitemOpen \csname NAT@b@open@#2\endcsname \expan
dafter \let \expandafter \bibitemShut \csname NAT@b@shut@#2\endcsname \@ifnum {
\NAT@merge >\@ne }{\NAT@bibitem@first@sw {\@firstoftwo }{\@ifundefined {NAT@b*@
#2}{\@firstoftwo }{\expandafter \def \expandafter \NAT@num \expandafter {\the \
c@NAT@ctr }\@secondoftwo }}}{\@firstoftwo }{\global \advance \c@NAT@ctr \@ne \@
ifx {\NAT@tmp \@empty }{\@firstoftwo }{\@secondoftwo }{\expandafter \def \expan
dafter \NAT@num \expandafter {\the \c@NAT@ctr }\global \NAT@stdbsttrue }{}\bibi
tem@fin \item [\hfil \NAT@anchor {#2}{\NAT@num }]\global \let \NAT@bibitem@firs
t@sw \@secondoftwo \NAT@bibitem@init }{\NAT@anchor {#2}{}\NAT@bibitem@cont \bib
item@fin }\@ifx {\NAT@tmp \@empty }{\NAT@wrout {\the \c@NAT@ctr }{}{}{}{#2}}{\e
xpandafter \NAT@ifcmd \NAT@tmp (@)(@)\@nil {#2}}.

Which, I must say, is a mouthful and somewhat difficult to perceive. So, we open the natbib.sty file in an editor and search for \@lbibitem.

The subsequent lines show how the bibliographic entry is being rendered. The line,

\item[\hfil\NAT@anchor{#2}{\NAT@num}]

raises our suspicion and tweaking with this confirms that we have hit the right point.

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Further Reading

If you want to know more about \patchcmd, please take a look at this wonderful answer.