# Style duplication

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [November 19, 2007, 6:21pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367 "2007-11-19T18:21:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

<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:** [November 19, 2007, 6:21pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/1 "2007-11-19T18:21:18Z")

</div>

See Sean’s note in Zotero ticket #835 (\<[#835 (CSL duplication, filtering) – Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/835)

> ), reproduced below:

> We’re now running into a situation where there are many journals  
> with identical styles, and we need a good way to handle this problem  
> from the perspective of developers and of end users. The CSL schema,  
> for example, could support multiple tags the way it currently does  
> for “category” so that several journal titles could be added to a  
> single CSL. End users might want to have an interface in preferences  
> that allows them show/hide styles in the export/citation dialog.  
> Users might, for example, want to have “Earth and Planetary Science  
> Letters” and “Metabolic Engineering” both appear, and not care to  
> know that having one or the other or both all point at the same CSL.

It seems to like we need to allow multiple titles, each with its own  
set of categories, preferably without replicating all other metadata.  
Of course, this would mean that we need to break (slightly) with Atom.

I’d propose something like:

 http://purl.org/net/xbiblio/csl/styles/apa.csl 2007-09-06T06:36:07+00:00 Simon Kornblith @Simon\_Kornblith American Psychological Association Journal of Primitive Zoology 

Here, is used for similarity with Atom. A more intuitive title  
might be appealing, given that this is not actually an Atom feed.

Outstanding questions:

1. Should each style have one main title outside of individual   
tags?
2. Does each need its own ID? (This is, IIRC, required in  
Atom, but again, this isn’t a feed, and I’m not sure this would serve  
any purpose.)

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:** [November 19, 2007, 6:22pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/2 "2007-11-19T18:22:58Z")

</div>

Simon Kornblith wrote:

Hah, we just crossed paths.

Bruce

---

<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:** [November 19, 2007, 6:33pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/3 "2007-11-19T18:33:04Z")

</div>

Just for comparison, with my #2 option, I was thinking something like:

in [http://zotero.org/styles/apa](http://zotero.org/styles/apa)

```
 <info>
   <id>http://zotero.org/styles/apa</id>
   <updated>2007-09-06T06:36:07+00:00</updated>
   <author>
     <name>Simon Kornblith</name>
     <email>@Simon_Kornblith</email>
   </author>
   <title>American Psychological Association</title>
 </info>

```

in [http://zotero.org/styles/jpz](http://zotero.org/styles/jpz)

```
 <info>
   <id>http://zotero.org/styles/jpz</id>
   <updated>2007-09-06T06:36:07+00:00</updated>
   <author>
     <name>Simon Kornblith</name>
     <email>@Simon_Kornblith</email>
   </author>
   <title>Journal of Primitive Zoology</title>
   <source href="http://zotero.org/styles/apa"/>
 </info>

```

Not sure I’m quite using Atom conventions correctly, but I’m sure you  
get the general idea. The rest of the file would probably be empty.

I’m not sure the best solution, but we need to be careful, since the  
details have far-ranging implications.

Bruce

---

<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:** [November 19, 2007, 6:38pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/4 "2007-11-19T18:38:20Z")

</div>

Bruce D’Arcus wrote:

> I’m not sure the best solution, but we need to be careful, since the  
> details have far-ranging implications.

Example:

Style B simply borrows Style A wholesale.

Two years later, Style B changes their style with some slight  
modifications, in essence creating a custom style specific to the journal.

What happens to the styles? To the user who depends on Style B?

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Julian\_Onions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Julian\_Onions](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Julian_Onions)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2007, 8:16pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/5 "2007-11-19T20:16:36Z")

</div>

I think there are two cases here, one where a journal might say, “References  
for this journal should be formatted as in journal XXX”. (or as in, say,  
Chicago Manual of Style). In this case I think a link is required, as we  
don’t necessarily want to pollute a base style with lots of journal names.

However probably the more common case is that a journal uses a style that is  
identical to another journal. This might be convergent evolution, copying or  
evidence of a house style by the publishers. In some cases the  
specifications between two journals use the same format and the same exact  
examples. In other cases the examples are different, but the outcome the  
same.

For the time being, having multiple titles for the same style seems  
convenient, if they diverge, then a copy will have to be taken and the split  
made. I’ve done one style just by renaming and retitling in the zotero  
archive, but this seemed counterproductive in the long run - especially in  
the FEMS journals where a style is shared between 6 journals. As I fully  
expect there to be bugs in these styles it also means I will have to fix N  
different files.

Julian.

---

<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:** [November 19, 2007, 8:25pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/6 "2007-11-19T20:25:03Z")

</div>

Julian Onions wrote:

> I think there are two cases here, one where a journal might say,  
> “References for this journal should be formatted as in journal XXX”. (or  
> as in, say, Chicago Manual of Style). In this case I think a link is  
> required, as we don’t necessarily want to pollute a base style with lots  
> of journal names.
> 
> However probably the more common case is that a journal uses a style  
> that is identical to another journal.

I’m not so sure these are two different cases. At first glance, I’d  
argue both involve different named styles using the same formatting rules.

Identification in CSL (as in Atom) is not based on title, but on ID  
(URI). The title is just a convenient label.

> This might be convergent  
> evolution, copying or evidence of a house style by the publishers. In  
> some cases the specifications between two journals use the same format  
> and the same exact examples. In other cases the examples are different,  
> but the outcome the same.
> 
> For the time being, having multiple titles for the same style seems  
> convenient, if they diverge, then a copy will have to be taken and the  
> split made…

But won’t that break things for the hypothetical example I gave?

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:** [November 19, 2007, 8:54pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/7 "2007-11-19T20:54:10Z")

</div>

This seems reasonable to me, although shouldn’t be in   
because it’s not metadata. Maybe:

 Journal of Primitive Zoology http://www.zotero.org/styles/mla 2007-09-06T06:36:07+00:00 

This seems like the most reasonable way of dealing with a journal that  
takes plain APA style. It’s probably not the most reasonable way of  
dealing with a set of journals with the same style (e.g., PLoS Biology  
vs. PLoS Medicine, or the various Springer styles), which would do  
better with a single CSL that simply contained all of their names.  
But, in the interest of simplicity, I think that this would work fine.

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:** [November 23, 2007, 5:19pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/8 "2007-11-23T17:19:13Z")

</div>

So to go back to this:

Simon Kornblith wrote:

> > Just for comparison, with my #2 option, I was thinking something like:
> > 
> > in [http://zotero.org/styles/apa](http://zotero.org/styles/apa)
> > 
> > ```
> > <info>
> > <id>http://zotero.org/styles/apa</id>
> > <updated>2007-09-06T06:36:07+00:00</updated>
> > <author>
> > <name>Simon Kornblith</name>
> > <email>@Simon_Kornblith</email>
> > </author>
> > <title>American Psychological Association</title>
> > </info>
> > 
> > ```
> > 
> > in [http://zotero.org/styles/jpz](http://zotero.org/styles/jpz)
> > 
> > ```
> > <info>
> > <id>http://zotero.org/styles/jpz</id>
> > <updated>2007-09-06T06:36:07+00:00</updated>
> > <author>
> > <name>Simon Kornblith</name>
> > <email>@Simon_Kornblith</email>
> > </author>
> > <title>Journal of Primitive Zoology</title>
> > <source href="http://zotero.org/styles/apa"/>
> > </info>
> > 
> > ```
> > 
> > Not sure I’m quite using Atom conventions correctly, but I’m sure you  
> > get the general idea. The rest of the file would probably be empty.
> > 
> > I’m not sure the best solution, but we need to be careful, since the  
> > details have far-ranging implications.
> 
> This seems reasonable to me, although shouldn’t be in   
> because it’s not metadata. Maybe:
> 
> Journal of Primitive Zoology http://www.zotero.org/styles/mla 2007-09-06T06:36:07+00:00 
> 
> This seems like the most reasonable way of dealing with a journal that  
> takes plain APA style. It’s probably not the most reasonable way of  
> dealing with a set of journals with the same style (e.g., PLoS Biology  
> vs. PLoS Medicine, or the various Springer styles), which would do  
> better with a single CSL that simply contained all of their names.  
> But, in the interest of simplicity, I think that this would work fine.

So can I get some votes on this?

The change would involve adding an optional “source” attribute on the  
root. Where present, a processor would instead load the content  
(everything but the info element) from the style identified with that URI.

As I mentioned previously, this is a trivial change with big  
implications, so I want to make sure everyone’s comfortable with it.

I also need some feedback on the following changes to the info element:

1. add a new cs:based

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Julian\_Onions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Julian\_Onions](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Julian_Onions)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 6:43pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/9 "2007-11-23T18:43:25Z")

</div>

Could you give a couple of samples of how this might look?  
I don’t think well in schemas as with something concrete.

Julian

---

<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:** [November 23, 2007, 9:01pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/10 "2007-11-23T21:01:41Z")

</div>

Julian Onions wrote:

> Could you give a couple of samples of how this might look?  
> I don’t think well in schemas as with something concrete.

The following example (that Simon posted) would be the complete style.

 Journal of Primitive Zoology http://www.zotero.org/styles/mla 2007-09-06T06:36:07+00:00 

Your example of multiple journals using the same style would work the  
same: each journal gets its own CSL file that refers to the same source.

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Julian\_Onions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Julian\_Onions](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Julian_Onions)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 10:07pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/11 "2007-11-23T22:07:07Z")

</div>

Looks good to me. Is there any thought to a source part of the info that  
could be used to refer to documentation about the style, such as the current  
source that I’ve been (ab)using.

Julian.

---

<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:** [November 24, 2007, 4:55pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/12 "2007-11-24T16:55:50Z")

</div>

Julian Onions wrote:

> Looks good to me. Is there any thought to a source part of the info that  
> could be used to refer to documentation about the style, such as the  
> current source that I’ve been (ab)using.

I’m thinking we need something like:

 Whatever Style http://zotero.org/style/xyz http://ex.net/xyz XYZ Guide

So:

a) some way to specify from what style a variant style descends. There  
are really only a handful of core styles, with almost infinite variation  
beyond that. I’d to be able to capture that in the metadata.

b) a pointer to some canonical location for a journal or a book publisher

c) a pointer to a book or webpage that documents the style, but which  
may be at a separate domain from the homepage

We did have much of this earlier, but it dropped out in the transition  
ot the new schema.

Any thoughts on any of this (use cases, the markup details, etc.)?

BTW, I just checked in the start of the bluebook style to the Zotero  
repo. I’m experimenting with seeing how little I can rely on types.

Bruce

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Elena\_Razlogova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Elena\_Razlogova](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Elena_Razlogova)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2007, 2:06pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/13 "2007-11-25T14:06:00Z")

</div>

Bruce and Simon–

It looks like in most cases CSL automatically places commas and  
periods within the quotation mark if it follows a title enclosed in  
quotes. This doesn’t seem to happen, however, in the “layout” element  
when the citation includes no page number and the title is the last  
item in the citation (this happens from time to time). To simplify:

If no locator is provided, the result is:

White, “Battle of the Century”.

But it should be:

White, “Battle of the Century.”

Note that the semicolon should fall outside of the quotation mark:

White, “Battle of the Century”; Jacob, “Eventful Transformations.”

I may be missing something, but if I am right, can you fix this?

Thanks!  
Elena

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**Author:** ![Julian\_Onions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Julian\_Onions](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Julian_Onions)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 8:47am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/14 "2007-11-26T08:47:47Z")

</div>

I noticed that the punctuation is included in the quoted title. Is there a  
way to stop this happening?  
As for instance in at least one journal…

"

Shearer West, ‘Thomas Lawrence’s “half-history” portraits and the politics  
of theatre’, Art History, 14: 2, June 1991, 240.

Please note that the comma in UK style comes after the quotation mark, not  
before it as in US style."

Julian.

---

<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:** [November 26, 2007, 4:47pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/15 "2007-11-26T16:47:25Z")

</div>

Well, the obvious way is to include quote entities in the prefix and  
suffix instead of using the “quotes” attribute. Alternatively, since  
positioning of quotes should be a locale-specific option (although I’m  
not sure if that’s set up properly in Zotero ATM), the user could  
switch the locale to EN-GB. Perhaps we need to specify "default"  
locale for each style in , and Zotero should use this unless  
overridden?

Simon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Julian\_Onions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Julian\_Onions](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Julian_Onions)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 4:53pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/16 "2007-11-26T16:53:18Z")

</div>

I don’t think the locales will be a good solution. The journal in question  
says that that is the house style. So if you wish to submit an article to  
the journal in its specified format, that’s how it should look. So typically  
people will want to select that style and submit the paper, not want to go  
changing locales and stuff.

I tried putting ` and ’ as prefix and suffix, but it doesn’t look very good.  
I;m not sure what is used in word but its not the regular ascii single  
quotes. Maybe there is an HTML or Unicode character that is better?

Julian.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Elena\_Razlogova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Elena\_Razlogova](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Elena_Razlogova)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 5:00pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/17 "2007-11-26T17:00:15Z")

</div>

> Well, the obvious way is to include quote entities in the prefix and  
> suffix instead of using the “quotes” attribute. Alternatively, since  
> positioning of quotes should be a locale-specific option (although I’m  
> not sure if that’s set up properly in Zotero ATM), the user could  
> switch the locale to EN-GB. Perhaps we need to specify “default”  
> locale for each style in

this seems like the best solution, especially since zotero javascript  
already includes british style quotes option:

```
this.useBritishStyleQuotes = false;

```

could this be switched on and off depending on style?

still doesn’t solve my issue though–let me know if it’s  
unsolvable, in which case i’ll stop worrying about it.

elena\> , and Zotero should use this unless

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![James\_Howison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@James\_Howison](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/James_Howison)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 5:11pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/18 "2007-11-26T17:11:13Z")

</div>

Not sure how they are implemented at the moment, but this is a good  
reference on best practices for choosing quite characters:

[http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/quotes-in-html.html](http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/quotes-in-html.html)

–J

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**Author:** ![Julian\_Onions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/958977/32.png) [@Julian\_Onions](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Julian_Onions)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 5:59pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/19 "2007-11-26T17:59:15Z")

</div>

Just tried that and it seems to work a treat in html and word at least! I  
think we have a solution!

Thanks,  
Julian.

---

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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:** [November 26, 2007, 6:00pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/style-duplication/367/20 "2007-11-26T18:00:54Z")

</div>

Simon Kornblith wrote:

> Well, the obvious way is to include quote entities in the prefix and  
> suffix instead of using the “quotes” attribute.

No, I think this is the wrong solution; or at least, it’s one we  
rejected earlier (it’s how we did it previously). Prefix and suffix  
should not contain ANY locale-specific content.

Bruce

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