Re: bibliography with certain canonical reference

Well, I intended off-list, but hit the send button too early! Still and 
all, the question might interest others.

Julian

On 17/8/26 16:34, jbf wrote:
>
> 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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>>
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>> ___________________________________________________________________________________

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