Re: bibliography with certain canonical reference

JP, off-list for the moment just to clarify a small detail.

How can I get something like (Aristotle, ca. 350 BCE./1998)? APA 
indicates this possibility, but so far the best I can come up with, 
using righttext, is something like (Aristotle, 1998, original ca. 350 BCE)

Julian

On 16/8/26 17:41, Jean-Pierre Delange via ntg-context wrote:
>
> Hi Julian,
>
> I think there are actually two possible approaches here, depending on 
> whether you want to keep this entirely within your present APA setup, 
> or whether Augustine is part of a larger body of patristic/classical 
> material for which a canonical-reference model would be useful.
>
> 1. Keep APA and add the canonical locator only to the citation occurrence
>
> If all your other references are author–year, I would probably keep 
> your present APA setup unchanged.
>
> ConTeXt citations can take a |righttext| parameter. With APA this is 
> particularly convenient because |righttext| is added as supplementary 
> material inside the parenthetical citation.
>
> So instead of:
>
> \cite[authoryear][main::augustine1991confessions]
>
> you can use:
>
> \cite
> [alternative=authoryear,
> righttext={X.33.50}]
> [main::augustine1991confessions]
>
> which should give:
>
> (Augustine, 1991, X.33.50)
>
> while all your ordinary citations can remain:
>
> \cite[authoryear][main::someotherwork]
>
> and continue to produce the normal:
>
> (Author, 2020)
>
> If you want the work title to be explicit as well, you could equally 
> write:
>
> \cite
> [alternative=authoryear,
> righttext={{\em Confessions} X.33.50}]
> [main::augustine1991confessions]
>
> The useful distinction here is that |X.33.50| belongs to this 
> particular *citation occurrence*, not to the bibliographic identity of 
> the 1991 edition. So there is no need to add it permanently to the 
> |.bib| record, nor to create a special rendering just for Augustine.
>
> 2. Use SBL modelling if Augustine is part of a larger 
> patristic/classical corpus
>
> If, however, the book contains many references to Augustine or other 
> ancient/patristic texts with canonical locators, then the module 
> |context-sbl| may be worth considering.
>
> The SBL implementation provides a |@classictext| category specifically 
> for classical texts and ancient works by Church Fathers. In that 
> model, the ancient work itself can be kept distinct from the modern 
> edition or translation being used.
>
> Schematically:
>
> @classictext{augustine-confessions,
> author = {Augustine},
> title = {Confessions},
> shorttitle = {Conf.},
> crossref = {augustine1991confessions},
> }
> @book{augustine1991confessions,
> ...
> }
>
> The canonical locator then belongs to the citation of the ancient 
> work, while the 1991 translation remains the bibliographic edition 
> behind it.
>
> This is a more structural solution than |righttext|, and is useful 
> when canonical references are not merely occasional exceptions but a 
> recurring feature of the document.
>
> So, roughly:
>
> APA + righttext
> -> simplest solution for a few isolated canonical locators
> SBL + @classictext
> -> structural solution for a corpus of ancient or patristic texts
>
> I would not switch an otherwise APA-based document to SBL merely to 
> solve one Augustine citation. For your present example, |righttext| is 
> probably the simplest and most appropriate answer.
>
> Incidentally, your question is very useful feedback for the new 
> bibliography material on the ConTeXt Garden. This particular case — 
> keeping an author–year style while adding a canonical or work-specific 
> locator only to selected citation occurrences — deserves a small 
> explicit example there.
>
> I should also mention that ANSS-CE is expected to receive, this 
> autumn, a set of additional chapters devoted specifically to 
> bibliography and citation management in ConTeXt. Those chapters are 
> currently being written and are intended to provide a more systematic 
> treatment of datasets, renderings, local and cumulative 
> bibliographies, citation occurrences and locators, specialised styles 
> such as SBL, and multilingual or multiscript bibliography.
>
> That does not make the Garden material redundant. On the contrary, the 
> Garden remains the natural place for concise, task-oriented examples 
> and for cases that emerge from actual user questions — like this one.
>
> Best,
>
> JP
>
>
> Le 16/08/2026 à 01:54, jbf a écrit :
>>
>> It is possible that the answer to my question already lies somewhere 
>> in the extensive (new) bibliography material in contextgarden, but if 
>> so I have missed it. And indeed it may be a very simple solution, but 
>> I can't work it out at the moment.
>>
>> I am typesetting an academic work by an author who wants local (end 
>> of chapter) bibliographies as well as, obviously, a final complete 
>> bibliography. No problem. I can do that and in fact have done so 
>> successfully. My problem lies with one particular set of citations 
>> from Augustine's/Confessions/, where the canonical references are 
>> something like Augustine, 1991, /Confessions/ X.33.50.  All I can 
>> manage to produce at the moment is the usual author-year APA inline 
>> format (Augustine, 1991) [Obviously we are referring to a modern 1991 
>> translation, but that is immaterial here].
>>
>> My current set up is:
>>
>> \usebtxdataset
>>    [main]
>> [references.bib]
>> \usebtxdefinitions
>>    [apa]
>>   
>> \definebtxrendering
>>    [chapterlist]
>>    [apa]
>>    [dataset=main,
>>     sorttype=authoryear]
>> \definebtxrendering
>>    [finallist]
>>    [apa]
>>    [dataset=main,
>>     sorttype=authoryear]
>>
>> And where I need to reference Augustine inline I write, e.g.   
>> \cite[authoryear][main::augustine1991confessions] which gives me 
>> (Augustine, 1991). Is there is a way I can also include X.33.50 in 
>> this inline reference, but only for the Augustine citations? All 
>> other citations are strictly author-year.
>>
>> Julian
>>
>
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