Help talk:References and page numbers

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Standard Edition Pages?

In the area of philosophy, and presumably several others (classics, etc.), we typically find it very useful to cite page numbers of standardized editions of an author's works as compiled in their original language, rather than specific English-language versions, and the former are usually listed along the margins of good scholarly editions. For instance, my edition of a work by Kant may describe his categorical imperative on p.73; yours might have it on p.7, or 213, or somewhere else. But if I cite it as "4:421" (volume 4, page 421, understood to be from the standard "Prussian Academy" edition of his works compiled many years ago), we can each look that up on our margins and quickly find that passage. Can we add a section specifying how and when this might be done?ScottForschler (talk) 17:51, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

p. vs. pp.

I recently had another editor change my references which look like this:

{{cite|...|p=300–305}} and Johnson, 2008, p. 300–305

to this:

{{cite|...|pp=300–305}} and Johnson, 2008, pp. 300–305

Is there any guidance in WP:MOS or other Wikipedia-namespace pages on this point? I never use pp. and never thought twice about it. Daask (talk) 04:10, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Conventionally, "p." is short for "page" and "pp." is short for "pages". So if you want to cite a single page whose number is hyphenated, use "p. 300-305." If you want to cite multiple pages, use "pp. 300–305" (note also the en-dash in place of the hyphen). —David Eppstein (talk) 04:27, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Daask: A real-world example of David Eppstein's hyphenated-"p." example would be the Olean Times Herald newspaper, which like many print dailies is divided into several letter-designated sections. So, a page number from the paper would be e.g. "p. A-1" or "p. D-4", whereas a range of pages might be "pp. A-2–A-4". (Or would that be "pp. A-2–4"? Come to think of it I don't really know the convention on that myself.) -- FeRD_NYC (talk) 07:16, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@David Eppstein: I guess I'm familiar with the convention, but didn't realize it was used on Wikipedia. I figured page numbers could be parsed to present ranges as pp. if they really wanted to, but you remind me that parsing isn't always easy. Daask (talk) 07:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What about the studio album source

What arpbout the L.P.? Oreratile1207 (talk) 19:22, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Oreratile1207: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:References and page numbers. I cannot find what your question relates to. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:40, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

On the Citation Oreratile1207 (talk) 19:41, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Now I'm really confused. Which citation? But from your two posts here, it looks like you are asking for help about using or editing Wikipedia. This is not the right place: you should post at the help desk, but you will need to state where (such as: which article, which section) you are experiencing difficulty. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:45, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]