Bibtex in-text citation using "et al." How do you insert 's to indicate possession? [duplicate]

Question

I'm citing an in-text reference using natbib and a Harvard-style. The way I've constructed the sentence indicates possession, for example:

Smith et al.'s (2009) recent study ...

What I get when using \citet{} is:

Smith et al. (2009) recent study ...

Is there a way to add the apostrophe and s in this context? I tried placing it in the square brackets \citet[][]{} but that doesn't work.

You can always rewrite; "The recent study by Smith et al. (2009)..." — Arturo Magidin, Jan 3, 2011 at 5:27
True, but in something the length of a dissertation it's nice to be able to vary the sentence structure. — Steve, Jan 3, 2011 at 7:20
Very similar concept to tex.stackexchange.com/questions/6613 — Joseph Wright, Feb 18, 2011 at 22:46

frabjous · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-03 06:06:16Z

11

It's not exactly pretty (especially if you're using hyperlinks or backreferences), but you could use \citeauthor{key}'s \citeyearpar{key}.

If you do this a lot you could define a command:

\newcommand{\citetapos}[1]{\citeauthor{#1}'s \citeyearpar{#1}}

That way you could avoid having to insert the key twice.

answered Jan 3, 2011 at 5:56

frabjous

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1

That's great frabjous, thanks a lot. I added some text color to make the apostrophe blend in with the rest of the hyperlink: \newcommand{\citetapos}[1]{\citeauthor{#1}{\textcolor{blue}{'s}} \citeyearpar{#1}}
– Steve
Jan 3, 2011 at 7:21
2

Just be careful using this with authors whose names end with 's'.
– Alan Munn
Jan 3, 2011 at 15:00
Good point - it would be better to deal with those 'manually' - using separate /citeauthor and \citeyearpar commands.
– Steve
Jan 3, 2011 at 16:16
2

I don't see the problem. It is perfectly acceptable to add 's to proper names ending in s. In fact, some grammar guides recommend that: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
– frabjous
Jan 3, 2011 at 16:31
Fair enough, though I think it looks odd to do that - it's just the way i've been taught. Good to know that it's not a grammatical 'error' at least.
– Steve
Jan 3, 2011 at 17:08

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