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  • If X wrote more than one interesting paper in 1995, do you just add on the subject? Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 19:06
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    @JAB If you cite Smith's two 1995 papers, exact referencing details vary but in general the alphabetical first is Smith (1995 a), and the second is Smith (1995 b). Your university/publisher/employer will always be able to tell you the adopted citation format. Many are available, but all are quite well understood and fairly easy to follow. Making up your own will just make it hard for people, and you might have to go back and amend your work in future. This Question is resolving into a matter of academic style, where seeking local advice on preferred format is always the way to go. Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 19:24
  • @CaptainCranium I was referring to Dirk's mental model, not to the citation format (which I prefer to generate rather than manually format these days now that I've been working with LaTeX for a while and don't have to try to mess with the limited bibliography management in most WYSIWYG word processors.) Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 19:29
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    @Dirk Not if you have referred to two, three or twelve papers/books/songs by Smith from 1995. Forcing the reader to guess and hunt is basically lazy and rude, when you obviously imply that you have the information right in front of you... or you might be trying to hide the fact that you are guessing yourself and your 'research' did not really occur at all. Referencing is always about helping an imagined reader to replicate your project shelf for this stuff (whatever it is), as far and as clearly as possible. Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 19:47
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    @captaincranium I can follow... You seem to be writing about citations in written text while I wrote about how I remember articles. Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 19:55