BibTeX, biblatex and biber ⇒ Bibliography in APA style

[JPWood]

Hi guys,

I was wondering if anyone would be able to help, I would like my references to be in the APA style, however when I try and use apacite it doesn't work. The only thing I would like to change on my document is the formatting of the references, everything else is fine. Any help would be greatly appreciated as my final project is due in just under a week and this is the final thing I need to do for it. If you need any other information please do not hesitate to ask!

the preamble for my code is:
\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[margin=2cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[normalem]{ulem}
\useunder{\uline}{\ul}{}
\usepackage{pdfpages}

\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage[UKenglish]{babel}
\usepackage{braket}
\usepackage{gensymb}
\usepackage{gensymb}
\usepackage[justification=centering]{caption}
\usepackage[backend=bibtex,style=numeric,sorting=none, autocite = superscript]{biblatex}
\usepackage{parskip}
\setlength{\parindent}{15pt}
\setlength\parindent{0pt}
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{3}
\setcounter{tocdepth}{3}

\addbibresource{Bibfinal.bib}

[Ijon Tichy]

apacite is incompatible to biblatex. But you can change the style option of biblatex to style=apa or style=apa6[/url] (depending on which APA version you need).

[JPWood]

Thanks for the response Ijon, I tried both style=apa and style=apa6.

style=apa6 results in an error of style apa6 not found.

style=apa results in an error of needing to change backend=bibtex to backend=biber, which, when done leads to a further error of command \supercite not found, however I haven't used this as far as I know. This does however, change the formatting to roughly how I would like the references to be, but removes the numbering is there a way to resolve the \supercite error and the numbering effect of using apa6?

I would like to use the apa6 style if possible. Just to clarify I don't want to change the style of my references in text as I want to keep them numeric, just the formatting of references themselves i.e.

Bianconi, E., Piovesan, A., Facchin, F., Beraudi, A., Casadei, R., Frabetti, F., ... & Perez-Amodio, S. (2013). An estimation of the number of cells in the human body. Annals of human biology, 40(6), 463-471.

instead of

Eva Bianconi et al. “An estimation of the number of cells in the human body”. In: Annals of human biology 40.6 (2013), pp. 463–471.

which I have with my current code for example.

I know this is a very slight difference however my markers can be particularly harsh should they not receive the document in the correct formatting.

Once again your help is greatly appreciated!

[Ijon Tichy]

style=apa6 results in an error of style apa6 not found.

Your TeX installation is not up-to-date or package biblatex-apa6 is not installed.

BTW: Usage of backend bibtex is also out-dated. biblatex supports it only with several limitations for some of its own styles. Third party style mostly do not support it any longer. So you should always use backend=biber (or omit the option) and configure your editor to use biber instead of bibtex.

Just to clarify I don't want to change the style of my references in text as I want to keep them numeric

In this case the style is not APA, because APA prescribes an author-year style. But you want the mixture of an author-year and a numeric style. I cannot recommend such a mixture, because how does a reader find the corresponding entry in the bibliography if there is only a number in the text but no number in the bibliography? Or does the references be done by footnotes? Or should the bibliography also be in a numeric style? Then it is definitely not APA. In such a case it is better not to use biblatex-apa or biblatex-apa6 but a configuration or modification of a numeric standard style or or biblatex-ext. But in this case, I mostly cannot help you and moreover a minimal working example and a detailed specification of the wanted changes would be needed.

[JPWood]

Hey Ijon, thanks for replying again, my program did need updating (considerably) and also the move to biber opposed to bibtex has helped considerably too thanks for your time!