# Article number vs. page range

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-number-vs-page-range/1579>\
**Category:** CSL Evolution\
**Created:** [November 13, 2019, 12:30pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-number-vs-page-range/1579 "2019-11-13T12:30:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Denis\_Maier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Denis\_Maier](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Denis_Maier)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2019, 12:30pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-number-vs-page-range/1579/1 "2019-11-13T12:30:20Z")

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Some online journals paginate each article individually, i.e. each article starts at page 1. Using page ranges for identification purposes is not useful in these cases, that’s why some style guides require article numbers in these cases: [https://sblhs2.com/2018/05/03/electronic-journals-with-individually-paginated-articles/;](https://sblhs2.com/2018/05/03/electronic-journals-with-individually-paginated-articles/;) CMoS17 is similar here (CMoS, 14.174, p. 832).

This has already been discussed on the [Zotero forums](https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/73704/sblhs-citation-style-for-electronic-journals-with-individually-paginated-articles), but I don’t know if anything has come out of this?

Shouldn’t this be handled somehow with CSL 1.1?

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**Author:** ![bwiernik](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/bwiernik/32/438_2.png) [@bwiernik](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/bwiernik)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2019, 6:29am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-number-vs-page-range/1579/2 "2019-11-19T06:29:37Z")

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In terms of CSL styles, could this just be handled by assuming that `article-journal` or `article-magazine` items might have a `number` variable, as well as or instead of a `page` value?

That said, I really don’t understand why style guides don’t just treat article numbers as single page numbers in these cases. Bibliographic databases don’t make this distinction very widely.

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**Author:** ![Denis\_Maier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Denis\_Maier](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Denis_Maier)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-number-vs-page-range/1579/3 "2019-11-20T22:04:28Z")

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Using `number` could work here. But, as you and @Sebastian_Karcher have mentioned we should check first if this could have side effects. How could this done?