Bibtex is a powerful tool to manage your references in scientific writing by using LaTeX. However, the bibtex sources can be messy in the wild. Here are some useful tips to prepare a beautiful and clean bibtex file.

1. Instead of searching from Google, it might be more convenient to search the corresponding paper or author in DBLP. There is an option to choose the export record as the BibTeX.
2. It will be more efficient to use some text editor like Vim to facilitate your editing. However, there is a steep learning curve to manage the Vim.
3. Be careful to include unnecessary components in your bib. For example, it will take extra space if you include url and doi. Note that most publishers have a strict rule on the page length.
4. If the corresponding paper is not published yet, i.e., just accepted or in press, there is usually NO pages, volume and number related information. Instead, we just need to amend a note component in the bibtex: note={accepted for publication}.

In the following paragraphs, we mainly focus on three types of publications to give you some tangible examples.