Consistency of bibliography incollection vs article

Question

I am using bibtex with imported bibliography, however I was asked to make it consistent.

@article {MR2735939,
    AUTHOR = {Zhang, Liping and Wu, Soon-Yi and L\'{o}pez, Marco A.},
     TITLE = {A new exchange method for convex semi-infinite programming},
   JOURNAL = {SIAM J. Optim.},
  FJOURNAL = {SIAM Journal on Optimization},
    VOLUME = {20},
      YEAR = {2010},
    NUMBER = {6},
     PAGES = {2959--2977},
      ISSN = {1052-6234},
   MRCLASS = {90C34 (65K05 90C30)},
  MRNUMBER = {2735939},
MRREVIEWER = {Francisco Guerra-V\'{a}zquez},
       DOI = {10.1137/090767133},
       URL = {https://doi.org/10.1137/090767133},
}
@incollection {MR2175672,
    AUTHOR = {Guerra V\'{a}zquez, Francisco and R\"{u}ckmann, Jan-J.},
     TITLE = {Semi-infinite programming: properties and applications to
              economics},
    BOOKTITLE = {New tools of economic dynamics},
    SERIES = {Lecture Notes in Econom. and Math. Systems},
    VOLUME = {551},
     PAGES = {373--393},
 PUBLISHER = {Springer, Berlin},
      YEAR = {2005},
   MRCLASS = {91B02 (90C34 91-02)},
  MRNUMBER = {2175672},
       DOI = {10.1007/3-540-28444-3_22},
       URL = {https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-28444-3_22},
}

The output is as such:

Liping Zhang, Soon-Yi Wu, and Marco A. López. A new exchange method for convexsemi-infinite programming.SIAM J. Optim., 20(6):2959–2977, 2010.

Francisco Guerra Vázquez and Jan-J. Rückmann. Semi-infinite programming: propertiesand applications to economics. InNew tools of economic dynamics, volume 551 ofLectureNotes in Econom. and Math. Systems, pages 373–393. Springer, Berlin, 2005.

In particular I would like to know how to change volumes so that they are consistent. Instead of "volume 551 ofLectureNotes in Econom" I would like 551:373-393. I could just change incollection to article, but is this valid?

Answer 1

The meaning of "volume" in (a) a scholarly journal and (b) a series of books is completely different. No useful purpose is served by trying to establish a "consistent look" across items which have nothing in common except the field name, volumr.

Entries of type @article should only ever be used for pieces published in scholarly journals. No exceptions to this rule.

Rather than try to establish a "consistent look" where none is called for, I would concentrate on providing information that's actually useful for readers. In the case of the entry with key MR2175672, I would provide information for the editorand chapter fields, and I would split the information currently contained in the publisher field into separate publisher and address fields.

With these adjustments in place, you rnn safely dispense with the series and volume fields, thereby "solving" the "consistent look" issue as well.

@incollection{MR2175672,
  author       = "Guerra V{\'a}zquez, Francisco and R{\"u}ckmann, Jan-J.",
  title        = "Semi-infinite programming: Properties and applications to economics",
  booktitle    = "New Tools of Economic Dynamics",
  editor       = "Jacek Leskow and Mart{\'i}n Puchet and Lionello F. Punzo",
  xseries       = "Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems",
  xvolume       = 551,
  pages        = "373--393",
  chapter      = 22,
  publisher    = "Springer",
  address      = "Berlin",
  year         = 2005,
  mrclass      = "91B02 (90C34 91-02)",
  mrnumber     = 2175672,
  doi          = "10.1007/3-540-28444-3_22",
  url          = "https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-28444-3_22",
}