Re: bibliography with certain canonical reference

    Hi Julian,

    After looking at this more carefully, it seems that the current
    ConTeXt APA specification does not provide structured support for an
    |originalyear| or |origdate| field. In |publ-imp-apa.lua|, |year| is
    recognized, but I cannot see an equivalent field for the original
    publication date. So the present APA definitions do not appear to
    model this information as a standard bibliographic field.

    Without modifying the APA style itself, the simplest way to obtain
    the form you want would therefore be not to use
    |alternative=authoryear|, since that already supplies |1998|, but to
    request the author only and provide the two dates together as
    |righttext|:

    \cite
    [alternative=author,
    righttext={ca. 350 BCE/1998}]
    [main::aristotle1998]

    This should give something like:

    (Aristotle, ca. 350 BCE/1998)

    Ideally, of course, one would like to be able to write something
    conceptually like:

    @book{aristotle1998,
    author = {Aristotle},
    title = {Poetics},
    year = {1998},
    originalyear = {ca. 350 BCE},
    ...
    }

    and have the APA renderer automatically combine |originalyear| and
    |year| as |ca. 350 BCE/1998|. But as far as I can see, the present
    ConTeXt APA implementation does not yet do that.

    Could you test the |alternative=author| + |righttext| form and tell
    me whether the result is what you were aiming for? If not, I’ll look
    for something closer.

    JP



Le 17/08/2026 à 08:36, jbf a écrit :
>
> 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
>>>>
>>>
>>> ___________________________________________________________________________________
>>> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
>>>
>>> maillist :[email protected] /https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl
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>>> archive  :https://github.com/contextgarden/context
>>> wiki     :https://wiki.contextgarden.net
>>> ___________________________________________________________________________________
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!
>
> maillist :[email protected] /https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl
> webpage  :https://www.pragma-ade.nl /https://context.aanhet.net (mirror)
> archive  :https://github.com/contextgarden/context
> wiki     :https://wiki.contextgarden.net
> ___________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : [email protected] / https://mailman.ntg.nl/mailman3/lists/ntg-context.ntg.nl
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