Spacing

CSL Development
1

MLA requires a double-spaced bibliography while most other styles use
a single-spaced bibliography. In addition, some styles do not place a
line between references, while others do. Both of these should be
options.

For double-spacing the entire bibliography, we definitely need:

attribute line-spacing { xsd:decimal }

where the default would be 1.

I’m not sure about how to handle spacing between references. I’d
imagine Bruce has some objections to a simple “delimiter” attribute
to configure this, since using
tags in HTML is considered
harmful. Perhaps just:

attribute entry-spacing { xsd:decimal }

where the default would be 2? Any other proposals, or should I just
go ahead and implement this?

Simon

2

Simon Kornblith wrote:

MLA requires a double-spaced bibliography while most other styles use
a single-spaced bibliography. In addition, some styles do not place a
line between references, while others do. Both of these should be
options.

To play devil’s advocate, I’d say this should be the domain of the main
document styles and templates, and so out of scope for CSL.

In truth, the distinction between document styles and citation styles
are rather artificial (since style guides cover both), so we just need
to make a decision about where we want the line to be.

To get to practical implementation issues, I’ve never liked that Zotero
doesn’t tag the bibliography with a style, and does all formatting
locally. I typically have my main document template pre-set with a style
to configure this stuff. So my workflow when using Zotero is to insert
the bibliography, then to tag it with the “bibliography” style. If
Zotero did this ahead of time, I’d not have to do that, and the spacing
would already be correctly established.

WRT to your specific suggestions:

For double-spacing the entire bibliography, we definitely need:

attribute line-spacing { xsd:decimal }

where the default would be 1.

So, for example, 1 1/2 spacing would be with a value of “1.5”?

I’m not sure about how to handle spacing between references. I’d
imagine Bruce has some objections to a simple “delimiter” attribute
to configure this, since using
tags in HTML is considered
harmful.

Indeed :slight_smile:

Perhaps just:

attribute entry-spacing { xsd:decimal }

That would be fine (if you convince me my devil’s advocate position is
wrong).

Bruce

3

Simon Kornblith wrote:

MLA requires a double-spaced bibliography while most other styles use
a single-spaced bibliography. In addition, some styles do not place a
line between references, while others do. Both of these should be
options.

To play devil’s advocate, I’d say this should be the domain of the
main
document styles and templates, and so out of scope for CSL.

In truth, the distinction between document styles and citation styles
are rather artificial (since style guides cover both), so we just need
to make a decision about where we want the line to be.

I think CSL should cover the citations and the bibliography. I should
be able to click a button and get a bibliography that looks right.
Spacing is certainly part of the way the bibliography is presented.
Things like the title page and the way pages are numbered are not.

Furthermore, options like hanging-indent are in CSL already, and
these are just as much in the domain of document styles as
bibliography spacing is. When Zotero didn’t implement these features,
people complained.

To get to practical implementation issues, I’ve never liked that
Zotero
doesn’t tag the bibliography with a style, and does all formatting
locally. I typically have my main document template pre-set with a
style
to configure this stuff. So my workflow when using Zotero is to insert
the bibliography, then to tag it with the “bibliography” style. If
Zotero did this ahead of time, I’d not have to do that, and the
spacing
would already be correctly established.

We could probably add this in a future version. But, for now, it’s
low on the priority list. While this is probably a superior way of
doing things, many people never use Word’s style support. They just
want Zotero to insert a valid bibliography using their given citation
style.

WRT to your specific suggestions:

For double-spacing the entire bibliography, we definitely need:

attribute line-spacing { xsd:decimal }

where the default would be 1.

So, for example, 1 1/2 spacing would be with a value of “1.5”?

Yes.

Simon

4

Simon Kornblith wrote:

…

Furthermore, options like hanging-indent are in CSL already, and
these are just as much in the domain of document styles as
bibliography spacing is. When Zotero didn’t implement these features,
people complained.

Well, and options are cheap; they don’t break compatibility, and
implementations can ignore them if they like (at least in this case).

That’s fine then; I say add them.

To get to practical implementation issues, I’ve never liked that
Zotero
doesn’t tag the bibliography with a style, and does all formatting
locally. I typically have my main document template pre-set with a
style
to configure this stuff. So my workflow when using Zotero is to insert
the bibliography, then to tag it with the “bibliography” style. If
Zotero did this ahead of time, I’d not have to do that, and the
spacing
would already be correctly established.

We could probably add this in a future version. But, for now, it’s
low on the priority list. While this is probably a superior way of
doing things, many people never use Word’s style support. They just
want Zotero to insert a valid bibliography using their given citation
style.

Right, but their bad practice should not dictate implementation
decisions. E.g. we should not be requiring (or preferring) that people
don’t use styles.

So, for example, ideally, an implementation would tag its output with an
appropriate class (in HTML) or style, but that it could also override or
modify that with the details in the CSL file.

Bruce