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I read article Two Generalizations of Komlós' Theorem with Lower Closure-Type Applications by Erik J. Balder, on page 33 : I found the following sentence "(see Appendix B)" that I did not find the Appendix B part in the article and I did not understand what the author means by this sentence

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Blue
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Karim KHAN
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    You do not understand the"see Appendix" ? It means: if you search for details, go to Appendix B of the book and read it. – Mauro ALLEGRANZA May 31 '20 at 17:00
  • I did not find the Appendix B part in the article. – Karim KHAN May 31 '20 at 17:03
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    I did not find the Appendix B part in the article --- This should be included in your question (and the question suitably modified), because you only said that you do not understand the meaning of a certain sentence. – Dave L. Renfro May 31 '20 at 17:09
  • This appears to be the article (PDF link via science.uu.nl). It makes multiple references to "Appendix A" and "Appendix B", including "Appendix A to this paper" (pg 26). However, there are no such appendices in the article. Weird. – Blue May 31 '20 at 17:11
  • Can he talk about the appendix of a reference? – Karim KHAN May 31 '20 at 17:20
  • @KarimKHAN: "Can he talk about the appendix of a reference?" ... Writing "Appendix A to this paper" suggests that there really should be an Appendix A at the end of that particular paper. :) Typically, an author would be clear about external references; if it's in a separate article by Dr. X. Ample, the author would probably write something like "(see Ample [2], especially Appendix A)". ... If the article weren't over 20 years old, I'd suggest emailing the author(s) directly for clarification. Perhaps there are other versions of this paper ... – Blue May 31 '20 at 17:32
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    Aha! Here's another version of the paper (PDF link via core.ac.uk). This includes sections "A" (page 15) and "B" (page 16), which are the missing appendices. (One might expect these to be explicitly named "Appendix A" and "Appendix B", or grouped together in a section called "Appendices", but the use of alphabetic characters for section "numbers" is an alternative way of identifying appendices.) These sections seem to have been re-named as sections "7" and "8" in the version of the article you found. – Blue May 31 '20 at 17:35

1 Answers1

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(Combining some thoughts from comments into an answer.)

About appendices in general ...

An "appendix" is a section added (that is, appended) at the end of an article, book, or other document. Its typical purpose is to elaborate on details of a topic that would be too much of a distraction if included in the main body of the text.

In mathematical papers, appendices tend to be labeled alphabetically to distinguish them from numerically-labeled sections in the main body of the work. Often, but not always, they are separated into a group explicitly marked "Appendices".

In this particular case ...

The article in question (PDF link via science.uu.nl)) has multiple references to "Appendix A" and "Appendix B", including "Appendix A to this paper" (pg 26). So, the author is definitely referring the reader to content of the current document; however, there is no Appendix A nor Appendix B identified in that paper.

Confusion is, therefore, understandable.

As it happens, there's another version of the article (PDF link via core.ac.uk), and this one includes sections —that is, appendices— "A" and "B". The content of these sections is actually found in sections 7 and 8 of the first version of the article.

Evidently, someone goofed during a revision, either accidentally re-labeling the appendices, or else intentionally doing so but forgetting to update the "Appendix A" and "Appendix B" references in the text.

Blue
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