BibTeX to CSE Citation Converter

Convert BibTeX entries to CSE name-year style references in seconds. Paste any @article or @book entry and copy a clean CSE citation. Free, no sign-up.

BibTeX to CSE Citation Converter

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Each source is checked against its published record, formatted in CSE Style (Name-Year), and kept in this browser. No sign-up.

What is BibTeX?

BibTeX is the reference format used by LaTeX and by reference managers such as Zotero, JabRef, and Mendeley. Each entry starts with an @ sign and a type – @article, @book, @inproceedings – followed by a citation key and a set of field–value pairs for authors, title, journal, year, and pages. BibTeX stores the raw data of a reference rather than a formatted citation, which makes it ideal input for conversion: every field is already labeled, so nothing has to be guessed from punctuation. Paste one or more entries into CiteTools and the parser reads the fields directly. The citation is built from the fields in your entry, as you wrote them, and is marked As written. The output is a finished citation you can paste into a paper written in Word or Google Docs.

How the BibTeX to CSE conversion works

Copy a BibTeX entry from your .bib file or reference manager and paste it into the input field.
CiteTools parses the entry’s fields and decodes LaTeX markup such as protective braces and accent commands.
Copy the formatted citation, or export the result as plain text, RIS, Word, Rich Text, LaTeX, or PDF.

Example input:

@article{watson1953,
  author  = {Watson, James D. and Crick, Francis H. C.},
  title   = {Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids},
  journal = {Nature},
  volume  = {171},
  pages   = {737--738},
  year    = {1953},
  doi     = {10.1038/171737a0}
}

About CSE Style

Council of Science Editors, name-year system - used in biology, geology, and other natural sciences.

CSE style, from The CSE Manual: Scientific Style and Format, 9th edition, is used across biology, geology, and the other natural sciences. CiteTools writes the name-year system. A reference gives the authors as surname and initials, then the year, the title in sentence case, and the abbreviated journal name. Volume(issue):pages follow, and the DOI closes the reference as an https://doi.org address. The list runs in alphabetical order, and the in-text citation is the surname and the year in parentheses. CiteTools lists up to five authors and cuts a longer list to the first author and et al.

Frequently asked questions

Which BibTeX entry types are supported?

The common types all work: @article, @book, @incollection, @inproceedings, @phdthesis, @techreport, and @misc. CiteTools maps each type onto the matching reference form in your chosen style.

Do I need the full entry?

The parser needs the fields your target style prints. Author, title, and year produce a usable citation; adding journal, volume, and pages makes it complete. A missing field stays missing. Paste the DOI on its own if you want the registered record.

Will braces and LaTeX escapes be cleaned up in CSE?

Yes. Protective braces around capital letters and LaTeX accent commands are decoded before formatting, so the CSE output contains normal readable text instead of markup.

BibTeX to CSE Citation Converter