locator only citation (at end of sentence)

[reagle]

I would like to be able to specify locator only citations in the author-year format (at the end of the sentence) to effect something like this:

According to Jones (1998), "students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (p. 199).

Presently, I have to manually format the page number.

According to @jones1998, "students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (p. 199).

Feature request: a way of suppressing author and year (with a double hyphen, for example) or otherwise specifying the page number should go at the end of a sentence.

According to @jones1998, "students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" [--@jones1998, p. 199].

[jgm]

Another alternative, tempting but probably too "implicit", would be to allow [p. 199] and automatically supply the last citation used...

[reagle]

Something like [@_, p. 199]?

[jgm]

Or maybe just [@ p. 199].
The space after @ would distinguish it from a citation or example list reference.

[reagle]

And then imagine an option that: when switching to a note style, combine the earlier @Smith2020 with the subsequent pagination for an end of sentence note! (I'm not even sure that'd be a good idea, but if it was, it'd be cool!)

[jgm]

Yes, that's exactly how it would work in a note style.

[denismaier]

Let me second that request. Having something like that would be really nice.

Just for the record: CSL 1.1 will add a proper in-text format, and the way citeproc-js implements this could be instructive for this issue: citeproc-js adds a third affix to each citation, i.e. an infix, which will permit switching between note styles and in-text styles.

Simplified example:

According to @jones1998, [, "students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time", p. 199].

So we have a prefix here, a suffix, and an infix, which is the quoted content itself. In an author date style that gives us:

According to Jones, "students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (1998, p. 199).

(Maybe the position of the year will be customizable, not sure. @fbennett or @bwiernik do you remember?)

EDIT: As pointed out be @bdarcus on the mailing list, the link to this infix feature is https://citeproc-js.readthedocs.io/en/latest/running.html#special-citation-forms

[reagle]

citeproc-js adds a third affix to each citation, i.e. an infix, which will permit switching between note styles and in-text styles.

Boy, that takes me back to using the csquotes package in my LaTeX days of yore. It had prenote, postnote, and citation key parameters. It was amazingly powerful/flexible -- but I spent too much time debugging my LaTeX.

[denismaier]

Boy, that takes me back to using the csquotes package in my LaTeX days of yore. It had prenote, postnote, and citation key parameters. It was amazingly powerful/flexible -- but I spent too much time debugging my LaTeX.

Not to forget punctuation tracking... ;-)

[reagle]

According to Jones, "students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (1998, p. 199).

BTW: This date placement is incorrect according to this gloss and guide on APA 6th and 7th edition

[denismaier]

Chicago, OTOH, allows multiple variants:

As Edward Tufte points out, "A graphical ..." (2001, 139).

Or:

As Edward Tufte (2001, 139) points out, "A graphical ...".

Interestingly, the APA preferred variant is not listed here.

[bwiernik]

(APA has variously given a variety of in-text examples over the years. They seem more consistent with 7th edition.)

I have pretty strong reservations about locator-only citations. Many citation styles (mostly numeric) do not show any locators at all. In such styles, a locator-only citation should probably render nothing at all. That would be fine for pandoc, but for WYSIWIG CSL applications, that's going to be really problematic--a Word field with no visible text is going to be a major source of headaches.

I don't really see the value of this over manually typing the locators in text. Switching to a note style from an in-text style already require some manual reformatting (eg, moving the citation inside or outside the period at the end of a sentence or adding/removing a space before a citation). I think this should be treated as one of these minor reformatting needs.

[denismaier]

Many citation styles (mostly numeric) do not show any locators at all. In such styles, a locator-only citation should probably render nothing at all.

True. OTOH, my suspicion would be that most users tend to switch between author-date and note styles. Also, maybe pandoc could restrict that sort of behaviour to author-date styles, and partly to note styles.

That would be fine for pandoc, but for WYSIWIG CSL applications, that's going to be really problematic--a Word field with no visible text is going to be a major source of headaches.

Yes, but I don't think that should stop pandoc from adding an implementation specific addition, just as it's been doing all the way down with in-text citations, for which there is still no support in Word and LibreOffice.

I don't really see the value of this over manually typing the locators in text.

I can think of the question whether you add a locator label in front of the locator, e.g. "(p. 139)" vs. "(139).

Switching to a note style from an in-text style already require some manual reformatting (eg, moving the citation inside or outside the period at the end of a sentence or adding/removing a space before a citation). I think this should be treated as one of these minor reformatting needs.

With pandoc you can fairly automate some of these reformatting needs. Adding or removing spaces shouldn't be an issue, neither should be moving punctuation.

[denismaier]

Thinking more about, it looks as if they are two different understandings of "locator only citations".

1. Suppress everything except locator information in a citation. This is what the original proposal was:

   @jones1998 says "bla" [--@jones1998, p. 199]

2. Provide a way to specify the locator and the citation in different places:

   `@jones1998 says "bla" [@ p. 199]

Would it make sense to say that in the first example we actually have two citations whereas in the second example we have only one compound citation, but without the ugly syntax from my example above? (@bwiernik In a WYSIWYG context that would then translate to just one field with an infix between the two parts, [author, year / locator]. Switching to a numeric style will then not give you an empty field for the locator, but we'll just have one bigger field without a locator.)

[jgm]

We'd need changes in citeproc itself to make this work.
Currently we have AuthorOnly and SuppressAuthor; we'd need LocatorOnly.

[bdarcus]

Would it make sense to say that in the first example we actually have two citations ...

Yes, but FWIW, it's not in fact the case; the author is adding one citation.

Not sure if that has any practical implications though, but it could?

[bwiernik]

Okay, I think adding a LocatorOnly option to CSL makes sense if pandoc is going to support it.

@denismaier @bdarcus Two questions:

1. We should probably indicate that LocatorOnly can be optional in environments where supporting isn't possible (e.g., WYWIWYG editors).
2. What is the expected behavior when @jones1998 says "bla" [--@jones1998, p. 199] is present in a note style? That the locator would be added to the note-part of the citation?

@denismaier Could you open a pull request for this change to the 1.1 schema?

[denismaier]

@denismaier Could you open a pull request for this change to the 1.1 schema?

Question is whether this will be a schema change or rather a change to the specification. I'm thinking in the end a note to implementers should do the job. Something like: "A citeproc shall implement the following modes: ..., LocatorsOnly, ..."

WDYT?

[denismaier]

2\. What is the expected behavior when `@jones1998 says "bla" [--@jones1998, p. 199]` is present in a note style? That the locator would be added to the note-part of the citation?

As I understand it, LocatorsOnly will mostly be usedused for In-text styles. When switching to a note style I see these options:

1. Merge the parts of the citation.
2. Use a regular citation as a fallback for the LocatorsOnly citation.

The first is more complicated to implement I guess, the second will require more rewriting from users.

[bwiernik]

WDYT?

Oh, yeah, that's how we handled authorOnly, suppressAuthor, etc.

[bwiernik]

Merge the parts of the citation.

This seems most appropriate to me. @jgm Would that be doable do you think?

[jgm]

Simplest solution would be just to use a regular citation in note styles.
I don't know about merging; seems like the kind of thing that might be a bit complicated to get right.

[bwiernik]

So if someone has @jones2004 said an awesome thing [--@jones2004, pp.123] in order to get “Jones (2004) said an awesome thing (p. 123)” in Chicago (author-date), then switched to Chicago (full note), I think a user would expect the result to be:

Jones said and awesome thing.[^]

The rest of the citation in the footnote, 2004, p. 123

So the page number with the rest of the citation in the note, rather than left in text.

would that be possible?

[bwiernik]

Alternatively, this would need to be a thing a user would have to change when changing styles (I remember in our discussion about moving the citation inside or outside punctuation you said this was something you tried to avoid)

[bwiernik]

Oh I think I misunderstood you.

You mean to render it as a regular subsequent citation with locator? So locatorOnly in note styles has no effect? That sounds reasonable.

[jgm]

I do understand what you mean by merging. I also agree that this would be superior. But I'm a bit worried about the "magic" involved in the transformation. It's worth considering whether it can be done reliably.

If we render as a regular subsequent citation, it will at least give correct citations in your example. It will just be a bit ugly, because you'll have a citation on "Jones" and then another one at the end of the sentence, which nobody would want.

[bwiernik]

I think it's a good solution in that it produces an acceptable result reliably. I think it's okay.

[denismaier]

It will just be a bit ugly, because you'll have a citation on "Jones" and then another one at the end of the sentence, which nobody would want.

Could the first citation just be converted to AuthorOnly?

[denismaier]

It will just be a bit ugly, because you'll have a citation on "Jones" and then another one at the end of the sentence, which nobody would want.

Could the first citation just be converted to AuthorOnly?

Of course, that case as well might be considered as "merging".

[jgm]

Could the first citation just be converted to AuthorOnly?

This transformation would have to happen in pandoc, not citeproc. And currently pandoc has no "author only" citations (only author-in-text, normal, and suppress-author). When we call citeproc we simulate author-in-text with a combination of author-only and suppress-author. Of course, author-only could be added to pandoc (we'd need a syntax for indicating it).

[denismaier]

(we'd need a syntax for indicating it).

What about +-@doe
First symbol stands for author, second symbol for other parts of the citation (head vs. tail so to speak).

+- author only
-- locators only
-+ no author

For the sake of convenience and backwards compatibility a single - could continue to indicate a noauthor citation.

[bwiernik]

This might be easier:

symbol	mode
[@jones2014]	regular
@jones2014	inText
[-@jones2014]	suppressAuthor
-@jones2014	authorOnly
[--@jones2014] and/or --@jones2014	locatorOnly

[jgm]

I like @bwiernik's chart; the only one I'm not really sure about is locatorOnly.
The -- isn't bad, but I'd like to think about alternatives.
Do we need two forms? What is the difference between them?

[bwiernik]

I don't see a need for both. Whichever you think would be more intuitive (probably with the brackets).

I'll think about an alternative to --, but I do like it as "really show less":

-@jones2014 noted that his hair was blue [--@jones2014, p. 123]

[denismaier]

@bwiernik's chart looks good to me too.

[bdarcus]

I like @bwiernik's chart; the only one I'm not really sure about is locatorOnly.
The -- isn't bad, but I'd like to think about alternatives.
Do we need two forms? What is the difference between them?

Not been following this closely, but wouldn't it be ".... p24" vs "..... (p24)".

[denismaier]

Not been following this closely, but wouldn't it be ".... p24" vs "..... (p24)".

Could be, but there currently aren't "bare" forms in pandoc.

[bwiernik]

I can't imagine when '...p24' would ever make sense.

[denismaier]

Maybe in some rare cases in note styles. I also don't see a urgent need for this.

[reagle]

Just wondering if interest in this fell off or if people are doing something different now? I haven't had a large writing project where something like this is most useful since I filed this, but I can see that changing.

[denismaier]

I guess one issue is conceptual clarity of the proposal. The other is time constraints.

[reagle]

@denismaier btw: what happened with CSL 1.1; it seems as if the latest is 1.0.2?

[bdarcus]

.. what happened with CSL 1.1; it seems as if the latest is 1.0.2?

@reagle - I'd say it's in a holding pattern.

https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/upcoming-csl-meetup-context/1767/1

Not clear when, if, or how it will be released.

My conclusion in that thread is we should just rewrite CSL from scratch, though that's also not without its challenges and controversy.

[reagle]

BTW: Whatever the future might hold (if anything) I also see a need for year only citations to deal with apostrophe's and first names. That is, sometimes I need to add 's to last names or I want to include the authors' first names and the only way I can think to do this is to do so manually in the prose. I'd still like a citation key of (YEAR) because if I enter that manually as well, I then need to include fully manual citations in the document's YAML nocite (which includes it in the bibliography even if not cited).