BibTeX styles that use all the info that Zotero outputs to bib file for less common sources?

Question

I'm also using Zotero to generate the bib file, then I'm using BibTeX and Natbib for a paper and I'm trying to find a style, preferably something that looks like APA or at least uses name and year formats in the parenthetical citations, that will work for less common sources.

For instance, one of my sources is a blog post. Zotero enters this in the bib file:

@misc{goren_uga_2017-1,
type = {Blog},
title = {{UGA} {Words} {You}’ve {Been} {Saying} {Wrong}},
url = {https://theblacksheeponline.com/georgia/5-uga-words-youve-saying-wrong},
abstract = {Too many of us fail to respect the UGA vernacular, mispronouncing the names of the people and places that make up our UGA family, which is plain not cool. How would you like it if your own family mispronounced your name? And I mean your whole family for once, not just your aunt’s shitty […]},
language = {English},
urldate = {2018-11-09},
journal = {The Black Sheep},
author = {Goren, Ben},
month = apr,
year = {2017}
}

That's a good amount of information. Unfortunately, after trying 5 or so styles, they all print something like the follow:

Goren, B., 2017. UGA Words You’ve Been Saying Wrong.

Occasionally, the URL is also included, but the ones that include the URL also manage to horribly mangle the spacing.

Similarly, I have a dictionary entry. The bib ends up having all this:

@misc{noauthor_niche_2018,
title = {niche, n.},
url = {http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/126748},
language = {English},
urldate = {2018-11-13},
journal = {OED Online},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
month = jul,
year = {2018},
}

But the reference typically ends up being something extroardinarily minimal, like:

(2018) niche, n.

It's hard to imagine that this is the best that can be done with BibTeX styles. Are there others that handle this better out of the box?

Answer 1

You may want to give the apacite bibliography style (which requires the apacite citation management package) a shot. It recognizes fields such as type and urldate. Of course, if you can't stand the way the apacite bib style formats the bibliographic entries, don't feel obliged to use this particular bib style.

As I noted earlier in a comment below your posting, there's nothing to stop you from augmenting and correcting the Zotero-supplied entries. E.g., if an entry is lacking an author or editor field, be sure to provide a key field so that authoryear-style citation call-outs can be formed correctly. And, consider adding the line field = {Dictionary entry} for the entry that is, well, a dictionary entry.

\RequirePackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{mybib.bib}
@misc{noauthor_niche_2018,
key       = {OED},
type      = {Dictionary Entry},
title     = {niche, n.},
url       = {http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/126748},
language  = {English},
urldate   = {2018-11-13},
journal   = {OED Online},
publisher = {OED (Oxford University Press) Online},
month     = jul,
year      = {2018},
}
@misc{goren_uga_2017-1,
type     = {Blog}, 
title    = {{UGA} Words You've Been Saying Wrong},
url      = {https://theblacksheeponline.com/georgia/5-uga-words-youve-saying-wrong},
abstract = {Too many of us fail to respect the UGA vernacular, mispronouncing the names of the people and places that make up our UGA family, which is plain not cool. How would you like it if your own family mispronounced your name? And I mean your whole family for once, not just your aunt's shitty~\dots},
language = {English},
urldate  = {2018-11-09},
journal  = {The Black Sheep},
author   = {Goren, Ben},
month    = apr,
year     = {2017},
}
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[natbibapa]{apacite}
\bibliographystyle{apacite}
\usepackage[hyphens,spaces]{url}
\usepackage[colorlinks,allcolors=blue]{hyperref}

\begin{document}
\noindent
\citet{noauthor_niche_2018}, \citep{goren_uga_2017-1}
\bibliography{mybib}
\end{document}