Definition
Plain language
A plain-text format for storing the reference entries at the end of a research paper.
As stated in the literature
A reference-management format and tool paired with LaTeX, storing each cited work as a structured entry with fields like author, title, year, and venue; LLM tools that generate BibTeX entries are a documented source of fabricated citations.
Why it matters: It keeps a paper's citations consistent and machine-readable, but tools that auto-generate its entries can quietly insert references that don't exist.
For example, a researcher stores each source as a BibTeX entry with its author, title, and year, and the software builds the reference list automatically.
Heard on the show
“… breakdown rather than misconduct: a model turns a fuzzy memory of a paper into a polished, alphabetized BibTeX entry in seconds, and on the page it looks exactly like scholarly care. …”Episode 201 — One in Four NeurIPS Papers Cites a Reference That Doesn't Exist