How to refer to section numbers in a citation call-out?

Question

In the example bellow, the citation call-out to entry 58 includes also the section 12.3.2. Is there a package or a built-in way to create call-outs in this format? I'm using bibtex to manage the bibliography.

For example, I expected that I could use a command like:

default graph \cite{foo}[12.3.2]. This...

Answer 1

If you load the natbib citation management package (with the option numbers, since it looks like you use a numeric citation call-out style), you could issue the following citation command to achieve your objective:

\cite[\S12.3.2]{<foo>}

where <foo> is the key of the bib entry you wish to cite.

Here's the output of a minimal working example that illustrates these points:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{abcdefgh.bib} 
@article{xyz,
  author = "Anne Author",
  title  = "Thoughts",
  year   = "3001",
  journal= "Circularity Today",
  volume = "111",
  number = 1,
  pages  = "1-100",
}
\end{filecontents}
\usepackage[numbers]{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{plainnat}
\begin{document}
\cite[\S12.3.2]{xyz}
\bibliography{abcdefgh}
\end{document}