Add comments to bibliography

Question

In chemistry journals one often notices bibliography entries which contain a comment, cf. attachment. How to get such results using BibTeX/LaTeX?

Answer 1

Here's a solution using biblatex and its chem-acs style. The begentry bibmacro is modified to print the meaning of an internal "intronote" macro whose name contains the key of the current bibentry (if such a macro exists). A new user command \intronote{<entry key>}{<note text>} is used to define notes. MWE (compile with XeLaTeX):

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[style=chem-acs]{biblatex}

\makeatletter

\newcommand*{\intronote}[2]{%
  \csdef{cbx@#1@intronote}{#2}%
}

\renewbibmacro*{begentry}{%
  \ifcsdef{cbx@\thefield{entrykey}@intronote}{%
    \csuse{cbx@\thefield{entrykey}@intronote}\addperiod\space
  }{%
  }%
}

\intronote{Herrmann1999}{Some introductory note.}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@ARTICLE{Herrmann1999,
  author = {Ackermann, Lutz and Fürstner, Alois and Weskamp, Thomas and Kohl,
    Florian J. and Herrmann, Wolfgang A.},
  title = {{R}uthenium carbene complexes with imidazolin-2-ylidene ligands allow
    the formation of tetrasubstituted cycloalkenes by {RCM}},
  journaltitle = {Tetrahedron Lett.},
  year = {1999},
  volume = {40},
  number = {26},
  pages = {4787-4790},
  doi = {10.1016/S0040-4039(99)00919-3},
  timestamp = {2010.12.03}
}
@ARTICLE{Richards2008,
  author = {Adam, Fatima I. and Hogarth, Graeme and Kabir, Shariff E. and Richards,
    Idris},
  title = {{M}odels of the iron-only hydrogenase: {S}ynthesis and protonation
    of bridge and chelate complexes [{F}e2({CO})4{Ph2P(CH2)nPPh2}(μ-pdt)]
    (n = 2–4) – evidence for a terminal hydride intermediate},
  journaltitle = {C. R. Chimie},
  year = {2008},
  volume = {11},
  number = {8},
  pages = {890-905},
  doi = {10.1016/j.crci.2008.03.003},
  keywords = {di-iron hydrogenases, hydrogenases},
  timestamp = {2009.09.21}
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\nocite{*}

\begin{document}

\printbibliography

\end{document}

Answer 2

You cannot do this by using the \cite command directly: notes added to citations print where the citation is used, not in the bibliography. Instead, you need to create a misc (or similar) database entry to include the required information. Done manually, this requires a separate database for notes (mixing them in a 'standard' .bib file is probably a poor idea). However, my notes2bib will automate the process, allowing you to write the information inside your .tex file. There is then the issue of how to create the journal part of such a note. The most straight-forward way is to work by hand need to do it by hand:

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@ARTICLE{Herrmann1999,
  author = {Ackermann, Lutz and Fürstner, Alois and Weskamp, Thomas and Kohl,
    Florian J. and Herrmann, Wolfgang A.},
  title = {{R}uthenium carbene complexes with imidazolin-2-ylidene ligands allow
    the formation of tetrasubstituted cycloalkenes by {RCM}},
  journaltitle = {Tetrahedron Lett.},
  year = {1999},
  volume = {40},
  number = {26},
  pages = {4787-4790},
  doi = {10.1016/S0040-4039(99)00919-3},
  timestamp = {2010.12.03}
}

@ARTICLE{Richards2008,
  author = {Adam, Fatima I. and Hogarth, Graeme and Kabir, Shariff E. and Richards,
    Idris},
  title = {{M}odels of the iron-only hydrogenase: {S}ynthesis and protonation
    of bridge and chelate complexes [{F}e2({CO})4{Ph2P(CH2)nPPh2}(μ-pdt)]
    (n = 2–4) – evidence for a terminal hydride intermediate},
  journaltitle = {C. R. Chimie},
  year = {2008},
  volume = {11},
  number = {8},
  pages = {890-905},
  doi = {10.1016/j.crci.2008.03.003},
  keywords = {di-iron hydrogenases, hydrogenases},
  timestamp = {2009.09.21}
}
\end{filecontents}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{notes2bib}
\usepackage[numbers,sort&compress,super]{natbib}
\usepackage{natmove}
\bibliographystyle{JAmChemSoc}
\begin{document}
Some text
  \bibnote{A notes about: Adam, F.~I.; Hogarth, G.; Kabir, S. E.
    \emph{C.~R.~Chemie}, \textbf{2008}, \emph{11}, 890--895}.
More text \cite{Herrmann1999}.
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

If you want a note about something that will also appear in the bibliography as a separate entry, you might consult How can I list references from BibTeX file in-line with commentary?