I want to insert the Oxford Comma only if an entry has 3 or more authors, but not if the entry has exactly two authors.
e.g.
A and B (1999) [NO COMMA]
A, B, and C (1999) [COMMA before C]
I tried
author = "A and Firstname { B,} and C"
in the bib entry itself. This works for citation call-outs, but then two commas appear in the formatted bibliographic entry.
I use the aea
bibliography style, which is available online here. As you can probably guess by now, this bibliography style is set up to always insert a comma between penultimate_author
and and final_author
-- even if an entry has exactly two authors. Is there a way to adjust this bibliography style such that the Oxford comma gets inserted only if an entry has three or more authors?
For the sake of completeness, here's the function format.names
from the aea
bibliography style:
FUNCTION {format.names}
{ 's :=
#1 'nameptr :=
s num.names$ 'numnames :=
numnames 'namesleft :=
{ namesleft #0 > }
{ nameptr #1 =
{ s nameptr "{vv~}{ll}{, jj}{, ff}" format.name$ 't := }
{ s nameptr "{ff }{vv~}{ll}{, jj}" format.name$ 't := }
if$
nameptr #1 >
{ namesleft #1 >
{ ", " * t * }
{ t "others" =
{ ", et~al." * }
{ " and " * t * }
if$
}
if$
}
't
if$
nameptr #1 + 'nameptr :=
namesleft #1 - 'namesleft :=
}
while$
}
first_surname
andand second_surname
should not be called an "Oxford comma". Incidentally, why are you employing theaea
bibliography style if you don't like some of its formatting settings? – Mico Oct 7 '18 at 10:45