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Citation mechanics

Page range

The first and last page of a work inside a larger container, given in the reference entry rather than the in-text citation.

A journal article or book chapter occupies part of something bigger, so its reference entry states where: 145–162. This is a property of the source, not a pointer into it, which is why it belongs in the reference list and not in the in-text citation.

Styles disagree about eliding the second number. Chicago and MLA condense 145–162 to 145–62; APA and most numeric styles print both in full. All of them want an en dash rather than a hyphen, which is the detail most word processors get wrong.

See also

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