2014/1/13 Paul A. Rubin:
> Jürgen,
>
> By "parse properly", do you mean that the use of braces may override the
> design of the .bst file, or is there more to it (such as creating problems
> with spacing)? My usage patterns in the past may have been somewhat
> atypical. I would write for journals that do not have a .bst file (and may
> not accept LaTeX submissions), so I would use a "convenience" .bst file
> (such as plainnat) and override the formatting of name prefixes using
> braces.
>
Well, you just fool bibtex. If properly used, BibTeX knows who a given name
is constructed. It knows whether a name has a von-part, junior-part, and
that a name might consist of several first names etc. If you write
{{Johann Wolfgang von}{Goethe}}
bibtex thinks the first name is "Johann Wolfgang von", which is of course
wrong.
It might result in the output you want just now, but if you have to follow
different conventions, your database is not usable anymore.
If you write
{Johann Wolfgang von Goethe}
bibtex reads:
Surnames = Johann Wolfgang
von-part = von
Last name = Goethe
and you can instruct it to output the name the way you want (wrt order,
abbreviation of some parts etc.).
> I found a somewhat helpful PDF file at
> https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb27-2/tb87hufflen.pdf; at least it clarifies
> "von" v. "Von".
I recommend
http://mirrors.ctan.org/info/bibtex/tamethebeast/ttb_en.pdf
http://mirrors.ctan.org/biblio/bibtex/base/btxdoc.pdf
> I'm not entirely sure if there is a definitive proper choice
> between "von Kleist, Heinrich" and "Kleist, Heinrich von", although I
> personally prefer the former.
>
In the database, it clearly needs to be "von Kleist, Heinrich" or "Heinrich
von Kleist". See Oren Patashnik's original bibtex manual.
In the output, it's a conventional thing. In German texts, both is common.
Personally, I also prefer "von Kleist, Heinrich", but sorted under "K", not
"v". Note, though, that people often omit the von-part in the text, talking
of "Kleist", "Goethe" etc. This can be controlled via BibTeX as well, if
you use the proper syntax in the database.
Jürgen
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
