# Sorting MLA

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/sorting-mla/321>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [August 29, 2007, 2:59pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/sorting-mla/321 "2007-08-29T14:59:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**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:** [August 29, 2007, 2:59pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/sorting-mla/321/1 "2007-08-29T14:59:19Z")

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MLA is sorted author-title, rather than author-date. We could:

1. Take a sort-macro instead of a sort-algorithm option. This would  
make author-date styles 4 lines longer, but would be versatile. We  
would then have:  
  
  
  
  
…

1. Add “author-title” sort algorithm. This is simply, but not  
extensible.

2. Do both of the above (or perhaps, add ).

Simon

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**Author:** ![John\_P\_McCaskey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@John\_P\_McCaskey](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/John_P_McCaskey)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2007, 3:21pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/sorting-mla/321/2 "2007-08-29T15:21:54Z")

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I vote for #1. Not only is it extensible, it’s less ambiguous.

The option “author-title” or “author-date” is really just a name, a tag. If  
it’s named well, maybe it says/indicates/suggests what the sort order is,  
but as a CSL writer, I can’t really be sure of that. If I see “author-date”,  
am I safe in assuming that means, sort first by author in ascending order  
then by date in ascending order, and nothing else? Or does it just mean:  
Sort by the method used in author-date systems; if you don’t know what that  
is, go look it up somewhere. Maybe when I go look it up in an author-date  
style guide, I’ll find that the sort algorithm used is author ascending,  
then date ascending, then title ascending. Or, no, maybe another style that  
calls itself author-date recommends author ascending, then date descending.  
If “author-date” is really just a name, I have to go find out what it means  
in CSL.

Even if CSL’s author-date meant what I want, I wouldn’t mind typing those  
extra few lines in a . I’d spend less time doing that  
than I would confirming what “sort = author-date” means in CSL.

Also, I suggest including a way to specify ascending and descending. Not  
needed for author, but could surely be useful with dates.

John\>-----Original Message-----

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**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:** [August 29, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/sorting-mla/321/3 "2007-08-29T15:29:42Z")

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Yes, I see how this could be useful. But, how to formalize it in XML  
while re-using elements? It seems like we’d either need an attribute  
on all variables that just gets ignored during formatting, or we’d  
need to come up with a different way of specifying sort order.

Simon

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**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:** [August 29, 2007, 3:37pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/sorting-mla/321/4 "2007-08-29T15:37:55Z")

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Simon Kornblith wrote:

> > Also, I suggest including a way to specify ascending and  
> > descending. Not  
> > needed for author, but could surely be useful with dates.
> 
> Yes, I see how this could be useful. But, how to formalize it in XML  
> while re-using elements? It seems like we’d either need an attribute  
> on all variables that just gets ignored during formatting, or we’d  
> need to come up with a different way of specifying sort order.

We’d have to do the latter I think; something like:

… right?

Whatever the solution is, it needs to be easy for the common case.

Bruce

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<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:** [August 29, 2007, 3:47pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/sorting-mla/321/5 "2007-08-29T15:47:19Z")

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This looks good. I’ll make a child element of /  
 and allow (macro | variable), sort? attributes on  
 then.

Simon

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**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:** [August 29, 2007, 4:03pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/sorting-mla/321/6 "2007-08-29T16:03:56Z")

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Simon Kornblith wrote:

> > We’d have to do the latter I think; something like:
> > 
> > … right?
> 
> This looks good. I’ll make a child element of /  
> and allow (macro | variable), sort? attributes on  
> then.

Seems reasonable.

Just to make sure, how we would we configure a style like APA, where we  
also wanted the citation sorted author-date, and we wanted all but the  
first author name dropped? E.g. we want:

```
(Smith, 1999, 2000) rather than (Smith, 1999, Smith 2000)

```

…?

How would we configure a style where the citations should be ordered as  
they appear? What about numeric styles where the bibliography should  
also be sorted by appearance order?

Bruce

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**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:** [August 29, 2007, 5:20pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/sorting-mla/321/7 "2007-08-29T17:20:36Z")

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> Seems reasonable.
> 
> Just to make sure, how we would we configure a style like APA,  
> where we  
> also wanted the citation sorted author-date, and we wanted all but the  
> first author name dropped? E.g. we want:
> 
> (Smith, 1999, 2000) rather than (Smith, 1999, Smith 2000)
> 
> …?

> How would we configure a style where the citations should be  
> ordered as  
> they appear? What about numeric styles where the bibliography should  
> also be sorted by appearance order?

Just don’t add a tag.

Simon

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<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:** [August 29, 2007, 5:32pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/sorting-mla/321/8 "2007-08-29T17:32:27Z")

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Simon Kornblith wrote:

> > Seems reasonable.
> > 
> > Just to make sure, how we would we configure a style like APA,  
> > where we  
> > also wanted the citation sorted author-date, and we wanted all but the  
> > first author name dropped? E.g. we want:
> > 
> > (Smith, 1999, 2000) rather than (Smith, 1999, Smith 2000)
> > 
> > …?

What does that (“collapse”) precisely mean then?

> > How would we configure a style where the citations should be  
> > ordered as  
> > they appear? What about numeric styles where the bibliography should  
> > also be sorted by appearance order?
> 
> Just don’t add a tag.

Right, but what’s the attribute and its value?

Bruce