\cite (LaTeX2e unofficial reference manual (November 2018))

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#### 8.24.2 `\cite`

Synopsis:

    \cite{keys}

or

    \cite[subcite]{keys}

Generate as output a citation to the references associated with keys. The mandatory keys is a citation key, or a comma-separated list of citation keys (see \bibitem).

This

    The ultimate source is \cite{texbook}.
      ...
    \begin{thebibliography}
    \bibitem{texbook}
      Donald Ervin Knuth.
      \textit{The \TeX book}.
      Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1983.
    \end{thebibliography}

produces output like ‘`... source is [1]`’. (You can change the appearance of the citation with bibliography styles. More is in Using BibTeX.)

The optional argument subcite is appended to the citation. For example, `See 14.3 in \cite[p.~314]{texbook}` might produce ‘`See 14.3 in [1, p. 314]`’.

In addition to what appears in the output, `\cite` writes information to the auxiliary file `filename.aux`. For instance, `\cite{latexdps}` writes ‘`\citation{latexdps}`’ to that file. This information is used by BibTeX to include in your reference list only those works that you have actually cited; see \nocite also.

If keys is not in your bibliography information then you get ‘`LaTeX Warning: There were undefined references`’, and in the output the citation shows as a boldface question mark between square brackets. There are two possible causes. If you have mistyped something, as in `\cite{texbok}` then you need to correct the spelling. On the other hand, if you have just added or modified the bibliographic information and so changed the `.aux` file (see \bibitem) then the fix may be to run LaTeX again.

Unofficial LaTeX2e reference manual