With recent versions of ConTeXt, spaces after \cite[Author:1977] are getting eaten. I'm pretty sure that did not happen with versions from a while ago, but the archives suggest that it happened a long while ago: http://www.mail-archive.com/ntg-context@let.uu.nl/msg00062.html The minimal test file: ============================================= \usemodule[bib] \setupbibtex[database=statement, sort=author] \starttext Polya said \cite[Polya:1966] in 1966: "finished mathematics consists of proofs, but mathematics in the making consists of guesses." \blank \placepublications \stoptext ============================================== The first line ends up "Polya said (Polya, 1966)in 1966..." with no space after the close paren. (This is with 2009.10.27 16:35 MKII on top of TL 2009 from Debian.) Here is statement.bib to complete the example: @Misc{Polya:1966, author = {George Polya}, title = {Let us teach guessing}, howpublished = {VHS}, year = {1966}, publisher = {Mathematical Association of America}, } -Sanjoy `Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters.' --African Proverb