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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