Oops. I guess what I’m talking about can’t be called prefix and suffix.
Those are used for something else. How about preamble and postamble? preface
and __? stuffbefore and stuffafter? EndNote calls them prefix and suffix (at
least as presented to the user).
This is text that users pick on a per-insertion basis, just as they do page
or line location.
This is a somewhat tricky issue, though; it may be somewhat
implementation-specific. For example, perhaps instead of a
user putting in “cf” they might choose instead to explicitly
mark these as “see” references.
I’m assuming these attributes are blank unless the user puts something in,
again just like page or line locators.
User enters two references in one citation
preamble:
Item: ID #5
page: 234
postamble: t-tests were used
preamble: see also
Item: ID #8
page
postamble: t-tests were not used
citation processor produces:
(Jones 1999, 234, t-tests were used; see also Smith 2000, t-tests
were not used)
or
(Jones, 1999, p. 234, t-tests were used, see also Smith, 2000,
t-tests were note used)
or
R. Jones, ELECTIONS (Chicago, 1999), t-tests were used;
see also B. Smith, VOTING (Harvard, 2000), t-tests were not used.
In some cases, the user will need to indicate whether text is a
pre-/postamble or part of the surrounding text.
In a footnote:
1 Aristotle, PHYSICS (Lyceum Press, 325bc).
User wants to append “the standard work on the subject”
If user just adds this to the end, it will not travel with the citation,
just as adding a page number would not. If the user wants the comment (as a
page number) to follow the reference, the reference needs to be opened and
edited.
If the text is just added after the field, conversion to an in-line style
yields
1 (Aristotle, 325bc) the standard work on the subject
left in the footnote.
If text was added by editing the citation, conversion to an in-line style
yields
(Aristotle, 325bc, the standard work on the subject)
back in the main text.
In Endnote, the style definition is unaware of these. You enter them when
editing a citation and they just get concatenated with your formatted
citation. That might be the right thing here too.
Maybe CSL remains oblivious to these and the word processor just offers the
fields in its edit citation window, and plunks down before and after the
formatted citation whatever is entered in those fields.
John-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce D’Arcus [mailto:@Bruce_D_Arcus1]
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 4:28 PM
To: @John_P_McCaskey
Cc: development discussion for xbiblio
Subject: Re: Prefixes and suffixes in CSL?
Cc-ing to the xbib dev list, just in case anyone else wants to now …
On Jun 4, 2007, at 7:00 PM, John P. McCaskey wrote:
In CSL, can a reference object have a prefix and a suffix attribute as
it can have a page number attribute?
You mean element, right? E.g. you are asking about something like:
Correct?
In (Cf. Jones, 1999, 134, for more on this), does CSL treat “Cf.” and
“for more on this” as part of the reference as it does the “134”? Does
CSL define the punctuation between all these, and between subsequent
such references in the same citation?
No, CSL doesn’t have explicit support for any of this; there are no
cs:prefix or cs:suffix elements.
This is a somewhat tricky issue, though; it may be somewhat
implementation-specific. For example, perhaps instead of a user putting
in “cf” they might choose instead to explicitly mark these as “see”
references.
But perhaps we ought to put it on the list to consider as we look at
final revisions to CSL. If you have suggestions, post them to the xbib
dev list (assuming you aren’t still having technical problems with
that).
Where do I look to answer such questions myself?
In the not-yet-existent documentation 
Well, the schema is well-commented.
<XBib download | SourceForge.net
csl.rnc?view=markup>
Bruce