If you see a quote like:

A: "The problem of P has been previously treated in context C (Bovik, 2005)."

or

B: "The problem of P has been previously treated in context C [1]."

[1] Bovik, Harry Q, 2005 - TheBook.


is the author saying that Bovik has treated problem P in TheBook, or that Bovik has stated this in TheBook (i.e. the author is giving his source for the claim above)? Unfortunately, English has no evidentiality.

Also, when should you use style A vs style B?