How to handle multiple citations with multiple pages using a bib file?

Question

Using R markdown, I'm duplicating citations in my bib file to cite the same entry using different pages:

@article{devers_2011_34,
  title = {I know how to do the play now: A Part of Willy Loman in Synecdoche, New York},
  author = {Devers, Rebecca},
  journal = {The Arthur Miller Journal},
  volume = {6},
  number = {2},
  year = {2011},
  pages = {34},
  publisher = {The Arthur Miller Society}
}

@article{devers_2011_33,
  title = {I know how to do the play now: A Part of Willy Loman in Synecdoche, New York},
  author = {Devers, Rebecca},
  journal = {The Arthur Miller Journal},
  volume = {6},
  number = {2},
  year = {2011},
  pages = {33},
  publisher = {The Arthur Miller Society}
}

Writing (@citation, pagenumber) is wrong since I'm using full citation and some times the page comes after a URL.

Is this the right way to add pages to a citation?

(some additional context: https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/issues/4795)

Oh hang on, the linked GitHub issue suggests you are using a CSL file to format your bibliography and citation. Then your citations and bibliography are not generated by LaTeX, so the question would be off-topic here. — moewe, May 16 '20 at 15:56
I am using R markdown. the tag biblatex-chicago was a mistake. I want to use LaTeX to cite but I keep reading that it isn't possible since R Markdown uses pandoc-citeproc. I am slightly confused. — simohamed, May 16 '20 at 16:06
@moewe https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/544614/latex-citation-in-r-markdown — simohamed, May 16 '20 at 16:47

moewe · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-16T15:47:35.297

From the LaTeX side of things the correct way to deal with this is to have only one .bib entry whose pages field contains the complete page range of the article.

If you refer to a particular page of the article in citations, you use the optional postnote argument to give the page number.

\autocite[34]{devers_2011}

It is the job of the citation style to ensure that the page reference comes out 'correctly'. (Some 'verbose'/'note' citation styles that produce full citations indeed have an option to replace the contents of the pages field with the postnote. For the standard styles this option is called citepages, see How to avoid p. after pp. in biblatex?.)

You have tagged your question with biblatex-chicago and with that package I get

\documentclass[american]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage{biblatex-chicago}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{devers_2011,
  title   = {I know how to do the play now:
             A Part of Willy Loman in Synecdoche, New York},
  author  = {Devers, Rebecca},
  journal = {The Arthur Miller Journal},
  volume  = {6},
  number  = {2},
  year    = {2011},
  pages   = {25-45},
  url     = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/42909473},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}


\begin{document}
\null\vfill % only for the example
Lorem \autocite[34]{devers_2011}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

So when a postnote is present it automatically replaces the pages field in citations. This should produce the desired result.

Note that it might be nicer to use eprint for JSTOR links, but I explicitly used the URL to show that things work with a URL.

@article{devers_2011,
  title      = {I know how to do the play now:
                A Part of Willy Loman in Synecdoche, New York},
  author     = {Devers, Rebecca},
  journal    = {The Arthur Miller Journal},
  volume     = {6},
  number     = {2},
  year       = {2011},
  pages      = {25-45},
  eprint     = {42909473},
  eprinttype = {jstor},
}

How to handle multiple citations with multiple pages using a bib file?

1 Answers1