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I want to cite a conference paper that is in IEEE format. Unfortunately, the paper doesn't have any page range and volume number as I've downloaded it.

Here you can see the paper that I want to cite. I tried Zotero as well, but there was no success.

Please help me to cite this paper correctly.

Glorfindel
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Masan
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    What exactly is the problem? If a document has no page range, then do not specify a page range. Also, conference proceedings rarely have volume numbers (or at least, they are often not indicated); volume numbers are more commonly found on journals. Also, check out how other authors cited the paper. – O. R. Mapper Jul 09 '15 at 07:24
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    Sometimes a paper you download does not have the page numbers, volume, etc. included in the electronic version. However, you might find that information from a citation/indexing database. I don't know why it is like that but at least some IEEE conferences do it. (Also, be sure you have the final version and not the accepted version posted by authors here or there.) – mmh Jul 09 '15 at 07:51
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    In these cases, the most common form is a "pp. 1-6" or "pp. 6" instead of the page range. – o4tlulz Jul 09 '15 at 07:59
  • I am using Zotero. when it returns one page in citation it uses p. 6 and when there is a page range it uses pp. 1-6. Is that correct. Because Zotero mess up sometimes.BTW whats the volum number and its abbr of conf @o4tlulz – Masan Jul 09 '15 at 08:04
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    @OP: Actually, you can download a Bibliography entry for that particular paper on IEEE Explore that has all the available information. The page number is written as "6 pp. Vol.2-" in the entry. Since the publisher provided this information, this is the best that you get. – DCTLib Jul 09 '15 at 08:05
  • Thank you @DCTLib I've downloaded the bibliography entry from its page. But why it has 2 PP in the citation, Also why the names are reverse. Shouldn't it be (I. Kopcak,) Kopcak, I.; da Silva, L.C.P.; da Costa, V.F.; Naturesa, J.S., "Transmission systems congestion management by using modal participation factors," Power Tech Conference Proceedings, 2003 IEEE Bologna , vol.2, no., pp.6 pp. Vol.2,, 23-26 June 2003 – Masan Jul 09 '15 at 08:14
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    @Jamaisavenir: In the case of page numbers formatted as "6 pp. Vol.2-" (mind you, there is a separate Volume field that says "2"), "the best that you get" is, in my humble opinion, so poor that I would discard it. As for the names, it is usually acceptable to write names as either "first last" or as "last, first". Bibliography managers such as BibTeX understand both formats for their input; the formatting of the names for the final paper needs to be consistent for the bibliography and is usually imposed by the bibliography style. – O. R. Mapper Jul 09 '15 at 10:44
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    @Jamaisavenir That is one funny thing with the IEEE citations. The simple text format they provide in the website does not meet the IEEE format. I am not sure about Zotero but in Endnote you can kind of define a correct IEEE format and BibTeX will do the same. Also don't worry much with the abbrev. particularly for a conference paper. You can do "in Proc. of IEEE PowerTech 2003" in this case. – o4tlulz Jul 10 '15 at 00:13

1 Answers1

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I have a confession to make: some of my citations use fake page numbers.

Why do I do this? Because sometimes there just aren't any page numbers or I cannot find the page numbers for a document with any reasonable amount of searching. This happens especially often to me with computer science papers, where some venues just don't bother. Online journals also often have unusual approaches to page numbering, sometimes giving a DOI-like token rather than a number. In other cases, such as some book chapters, there are page numbers, but the versions accessible online aren't marked with them.

My preference in these cases is simply to omit the page numbers: citations are about information accessibility, and if the page numbers aren't a meaningful part of accessing that information, then I see no point in trying to fit the citation onto that particular Procrustean bed.

Occasionally, though, a journal with a particularly zealous and inflexible copyeditor will force me to add page numbers to things that don't have page numbers, and that is when I use fake page numbers, simply numbering an N-page document as pages 1-N.

Bottom line: don't sweat the page numbers, much less the volume number.

jakebeal
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  • Thanks for your answer. @jakebeal I also have another question. There is a paper that I want to cite it and write its DOI code. But there is not any DOI code for this journal. is that possible?
    http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/70237111/transmission-congestion-management-restructured-power-systems-by-generation-rescheduling-load-shedding-using-rule-based-opf     – Masan Jul 09 '15 at 12:15
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    @Jamaisavenir Most reasonable journals these days have DOI codes. The publisher of the article you link to, however, is on Beall's list of predatory publishers, and as such any sort of poor behavior is likely. You should treat the article as unreviewed and of highly dubious provenance. – jakebeal Jul 09 '15 at 20:32
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    a journal with a particularly zealous and inflexible copyeditor will force me to add page numbers — In this situation, I recommend sending the copyeditor the DOI and challenging them to add the page numbers themselves. – JeffE Jul 28 '15 at 22:49
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    @JeffE Sometimes that has worked for me. Other times, the copyeditor has instead come back saying that clearly the citation must be invalid and should be removed, since it's not in a "proper journal." This has actually happened to me from a prestigious venue, which I found unspeakably problematic. – jakebeal Jul 29 '15 at 04:51