How to remove unwanted asterisk that appears in margin when multibib is used with custom Section command?

Question

Background - I'm modifying a fairly well documented LaTex CV to build my own. All works well, till I tried to add publications using the multibib package (using this answer in Tex.SE). When I incorporate that, I get a series of asterisks in the margin that I don't know how to remove. I've whittled down the code to the following MWE - however, I have no clue how to debug it further. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

\documentclass[10pt]{article}

\usepackage{multibib}
\newcites{journal,conference}{Journal Articles, Refereed Conference Publications}

\usepackage{color,hyperref}

%%% SECTION HEADINGS

% The section headings. Flush left in small caps down pseudo-margin.
%
% Usage: \section{section name}
\renewcommand{\section}[1]{\pagebreak[3]%
    \vspace{1.3\baselineskip}%
    \phantomsection\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{#1}%
    \noindent\llap{\scshape\smash{\parbox[t]{\marginparwidth}{\hyphenpenalty=10000\raggedright #1}}}%
    \vspace{-\baselineskip}\par}

\begin{document}

\section{Publications}

\bibliographystylejournal{plain}
\nocitejournal{*}
\bibliographyjournal{journal}

\bibliographystyleconference{plain}
\nociteconference{*}
\bibliographyconference{conference}

\end{document}

content for journal.bib

@article{entry2,
    author = {Author name},
    journal = {Some Journal},
    title = {Title},
    year = {2013},
}

content for conference.bib

@inproceedings{entry1,
    author = {Author name},
    address = {address},
    booktitle = {Some conference},
    title = {Title},
    year = {2013},
}

Here's what the generated output looks like:

I want to remove the offending stars in the margin. I understand from the way the section command has been redefined, its treating the entries output by multibib as some sort of list. But how to make it not happen, is not something I can decipher.

Answer 1

\multibib uses \section* commands (hidden in \thebibliography), but a redefinition of \section{} without providing the starred version is wrong (in general!), so this must be cured in the way that \section*{} is still available, by pushing it back to use the old definition, using the \let macro.

If \section*{} is not available, the \section*{} will just print an asterisk symbol * at the corresponding place.

However, redefining \section will break other sections of the document body. In my point of view, the \renewcommand{section} should, if at all, only occur within the \thebibliography group.

Additional note: In \newcites{...} there should be no space between after the comma, as this is taken literally as the \bibname and it will appear accordingly.

The long version using \@ifnextchar etc.

\documentclass[10pt]{article}

\usepackage{multibib}
\newcites{journal,conference}{Journal Articles,Refereed Conference Publications}

\usepackage{color,hyperref}

%%% SECTION HEADINGS

% The section headings. Flush left in small caps down pseudo-margin.
%
% Usage: \section{section name}

\makeatletter
\let\LaTeXStandardSection\section

\newcommand{\starredsection}[1]{%
\LaTeXStandardSection*{#1}%
}

\newcommand{\unstarredsection@@noopt}[1]{%
\unstarredsection@@opt[#1]{#1}%
}%

\newcommand{\unstarredsection@@opt}[2][]{%
\pagebreak[3]%
    \vspace{1.3\baselineskip}%
    \phantomsection\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{#1}%
    \noindent\llap{\scshape\smash{\parbox[t]{\marginparwidth}{\hyphenpenalty=10000\raggedright #1}}}%
    \vspace{-\baselineskip}\par}%

\newcommand{\unstarredsection}{%
\@ifnextchar[{\unstarredsection@@opt}{\unstarredsection@@noopt}%
}%

\renewcommand{\section}{%
\@ifstar{\starredsection}{\unstarredsection}%
}%

\makeatother

\begin{document}

\section{Publications}

\bibliographystylejournal{plain}
\nocitejournal{*}
\bibliographyjournal{journal}

\bibliographystyleconference{plain}
\nociteconference{*}
\bibliographyconference{conference}

\end{document}

The short version, using \xapptocmd

\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{xpatch}%

\usepackage{multibib}
\newcites{journal,conference}{Journal Articles,Refereed Conference Publications}


\let\LaTeXStandardSection\section

\xpatchcmd{\thebibliography}{\section*}{\LaTeXStandardSection*}{}{}

\usepackage{color,hyperref}

%%% SECTION HEADINGS

% The section headings. Flush left in small caps down pseudo-margin.
%
% Usage: \section{section name}

% This not a very good style --> it will break the text sections!

\renewcommand{\section}[1]{%
\pagebreak[3]%
    \vspace{1.3\baselineskip}%
    \phantomsection\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{#1}%
    \noindent\llap{\scshape\smash{\parbox[t]{\marginparwidth}{\hyphenpenalty=10000\raggedright #1}}}%
    \vspace{-\baselineskip}\par}%



\begin{document}

\section{Publications}

\bibliographystylejournal{plain}
\nocitejournal{*}
\bibliographyjournal{journal}

\bibliographystyleconference{plain}
\nociteconference{*}
\bibliographyconference{conference}

\end{document}