# first/subsequent citations

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/first-subsequent-citations/155>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [July 24, 2006, 2:47pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/first-subsequent-citations/155 "2006-07-24T14:47:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2006, 2:47pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/first-subsequent-citations/155/1 "2006-07-24T14:47:11Z")

</div>

Design question.

A lot of styles have distinctions between first and subsequent  
citations. This is particularly common in note-based styles, where the  
first is the full reference, and the rest short forms.

But even in-text styles have different et al rules for first and  
subsequent.

So while I’m redoing the schema, I might as well revisit this.

Here is what I’m looking at:

A default “item” element, and an optional "item/@type=“subsequent”.  
E.g.:

 ... 

```
 </item>

```

Is that fine?

What about the et al rules? Right now they are defined in their own  
element apart from the templates (because they are sort of a separate  
issue).

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Simon\_Kornblith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Simon\_Kornblith](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Simon_Kornblith)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2006, 4:17pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/first-subsequent-citations/155/2 "2006-07-24T16:17:39Z")

</div>

> Design question.
> 
> A lot of styles have distinctions between first and subsequent  
> citations. This is particularly common in note-based styles, where the  
> first is the full reference, and the rest short forms.
> 
> But even in-text styles have different et al rules for first and  
> subsequent.
> 
> So while I’m redoing the schema, I might as well revisit this.
> 
> Here is what I’m looking at:
> 
> A default “item” element, and an optional "item/@type=“subsequent”.  
> E.g.:
> 
> ... 
> 
> ```
> </item>
> 
> ```
> 
> Is that fine?

Seems fine to me.

> What about the et al rules? Right now they are defined in their own  
> element apart from the templates (because they are sort of a separate  
> issue).

I think that this will work, because it would seem unlikely that a style  
would define different et al rules for different reference types.

Simon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/first-subsequent-citations/155/3 "2006-07-24T16:57:49Z")

</div>

Just to be clear, I’m not averse to figuring out a more general  
solution for sorting and substitution. I just think if we do that, it  
ought to not make the templating more complicated, and so yes, would  
happen in separate structures.

Bruce