Citation Details

◇◆

Abbreviated Citations

Some citations are complicated by the fact that they do not provide the full citation information for each cited reference. For example, some publishers identify successive bibliographic references by the same author or involving the same journal by omitting the duplicated portion of the reference and inserting a vertical rule, the word “Ibid”, the word “Id.”, etc. Other publishers may omit the title of a cited journal article to save space. While best practice is to tag all citations completely, archives or publishers may choose to tag an abbreviated citation exactly as it was displayed.

If it is important for an archive or publisher to make each citation accessible for citation matching services, incomplete references should be enhanced by tagging the missing information based on the preceding reference. At the discretion of the archive, the word “Ibid” or “Id.” may also be retained as part of the textual content.

As an example, here is a citation that mixes multiple works by a single author:

Holmes, S. J. (1) Phototaxis in the amphipoda. Am. Jour. 
Physiol., 5, 211, 1901; (2) The reactions of Ranatra to 
light. Jour. Comp. Neur. Psych., 15, 305, 1905.

To preserve the exact order and punctuation of these citations, each publisher or archive must decide whether the semicolon and space between the citations is part of the first citation or the second. Here is the double-citation reference tagged as a mixed-style citation, with the punctuation added to the end of the first citation:

<ref id="ref1" content-type="double-author">
 <mixed-citation publication-type="journal">
  <string-name><surname>Holmes</surname>, <given-names>S. J.</given-names>
  </string-name> <label>(1)</label> <article-title>Phototaxis
  in the amphipoda</article-title>. <source>Am. Jour. 
  Physiol.</source>, <volume>5</volume>, <issue>211</issue>, 
  <year iso-8601-date="1901">1901</year>; </mixed-citation>
 <mixed-citation><label>(2)</label> <article-title>The 
  reactions of Ranatra to light</article-title>. <source>Jour.
  Comp. Neur. Psych.</source>, <volume>15</volume>, 
  <issue>305</issue>, <year iso-8601-date="1905">1905</year>.
 </mixed-citation>
</ref>

If completeness of citations for reference matching is more important than preserving the original word order and exact punctuation, information that is only displayed in one citation should be tagged in both. Because display is less important than completeness, the label can be moved to the beginning of the citation. Here is the same citation tagged as an element-style citation and incorporating the changes just mentioned:

<ref id="ref1" content-type="double-author">
 <element-citation publication-type="journal">
  <label>(1)</label>
  <name><surname>Holmes</surname><given-names>S. J.</given-names></name>
  <article-title>Phototaxis in the amphipoda</article-title>
  <source>Am. Jour. Physiol.</source>
  <volume>5</volume><issue>211</issue>
  <year iso-8601-date="1901">1901</year>
 </element-citation>
 <element-citation>
  <label>(2)</label>
  <name><surname>Holmes</surname><given-names>S.J.</given-names></name>
  <article-title>The reactions of Ranatra to light</article-title>
  <source>Jour. Comp. Neur. Psych.</source>
  <volume>15</volume><issue>305</issue>
  <year iso-8601-date="1905">1905</year>
 </element-citation>
</ref>

Labels in Citations

Some bibliographic reference lists are unnumbered, some are bulleted lists, some have a counting number before each reference, and some have special symbols or author-descriptive labels (such as [Piez 2009]) constructed according to “Harvard rules” or other semantic numbering system. The first decision a publisher or archive needs to make is whether to capture such numbers using <label> or whether all such designators are generated for display or print. A repository archive may choose to preserve all numbers; a publisher may choose to generate them.

Assuming numbers will be preserved, the next decision concerns punctuation and spacing. It is possible to preserve all punctuation and spacing “3.” or “[Lapeyre-Usdin 2009]” or to preserve just the significant portion of the label (the numeral or the name-year) and not preserve the spacing or punctuation: “3” or “Lapeyre-Usdin 2009”. The following samples preserve the label punctuation (and could also preserve label spacing):

<ref>
 <label>13</label><x>. </x>
 <element-citation publication-type="journal" publication-format="print">
  <collab-name>American College of Dentists, Board of 
   Regents</collab-name>
  <article-title>The ethics of quackery and fraud
   in dentistry: a position paper</article-title>
  <source>J Am Coll Dent</source>
  <year iso-8601-date="2003">2003</year>
  <volume>70</volume>
  <issue>3</issue>
  <fpage>6</fpage>
  <lpage>8</lpage>
 </element-citation>
</ref>

<ref>
 <label>13</label><x>. </x>
 <mixed-citation publication-type="journal" publication-format="print">
  <collab-name>American College of Dentists, Board of
  Regents</collab-name>. <article-title>The ethics of
  quackery and fraud in dentistry: a position
  paper</article-title>. <source>J Am Coll
  Dent</source>. <year iso-8601-date="2003">2003</year>;
  <volume>70</volume>(<issue>3</issue>):
  <fpage>6</fpage>-<lpage>8</lpage>.</mixed-citation>
</ref>

Usually the label applies to the reference (<ref>). Citations (<element-citation> or <mixed-citation>) are typically only numbered when multiple citations occur within a single reference. In such cases, the reference is typically numbered in series with the other, single references, and the citations are numbered using a different numbering scheme. For example, a reference numbered <label>4.</label> could have citations inside it labeled “a.”, “b.”, “c.” or “[Gaylord 2005]”, “[Beck 2006]”, “[Usdin 2009]”.

Language of Cited Material

The language of cited material can be identified using the @hreflang attribute on the citation element (<mixed-citation> or <element-citation>). The attribute @hreflang names the language of the document being cited, rather then the language in which the citation is written.

An @xml:lang attribute on a citation element (<mixed-citation> or <element-citation>) or reference (<ref>) identifies the language of the citation or reference itself, not that of the cited work.
An @xml:lang attribute on a component of a citation (such as an <article-title> or <source>) only identifies the language of the citation component (such as the <article-title>), not that of the work’s article title.

It is recommended practice to use @hreflang to name the language of material being cited. Some publishers also insert a phrase in the text to indicate the language of the cited material (for example, “In Japanese”) to ensure that target-language information is displayed as part of the citation. Such a phrase might appear in the text of a mixed citation (<mixed-citation>) or within a <comment> in an element citation (<comment>In Japanese<comment>). Even if a textual display is tagged, it is still recommended practice to provide the @hreflang attribute on the citation, as it is machine processable.

Length and Size

This Tag Set has a single general purpose element <size> for recording the number of pages in a book, the showing time of a film, the number of kilo/mega/tera-bytes in a dataset, or any other measurement of size, length, or extent that may be recorded for a cited work. The @units attribute should be used whenever possible to state the units of measure, such as “pages”, “minutes”, “paragraphs”, “MB”, etc., which is typically given in the plural.

In both styles of citations (<mixed-citation> and <element-citation>), Best Practice for naming sizes and units is:

The <size> element holds the number, length, etc. of objects (“4”, “12” “368”)
The required @units attribute holds the canonical value of the unit (“leaves”, “pages”, “seconds”, etc.), and
The displayable value of the unit is recorded separately (see below).

Mixed Citations — Best Practice for mixed-style citations (<mixed-citation>) is to place the unit display text into the free text of the citation. The unit display should never be inside the <size> element.

...
<mixed-citation publication-type="conf-proc">
 ...
 <size units="pages">385</size> p. <comment>(Progress in
 brain research; vol. 147)</comment>
</mixed-citation>
...

Element Citations — In element-style citations (<element-citation>), there is no one Best Practice for recording displayable units. The units in the text can be handled in several ways:

Best if possible. If the @units attribute value has been tagged consistently, the unit display text can be generated on display and does not have to be included in the element content:
```
<size units="pages">256</size>
```
If the publisher or archive does not wish to generate text based on the attribute (or cannot, for example, if the attributes have not been tagged consistently), there are no good answers, but the display of the unit text can be handled (awkwardly):
- Included as content of a <comment> or an <x> element
```
<element-citation>...
<size units="pages">256</size><comment> p.</comment>
...</element-citation>
```
- If all else fails. Included as content in the <size> tag:
```
<size units="pages">256 pages</size>
```

<size> compared to <book-page-count>

The <size> records information about cited material. The <book-page-count> element is document-level metadata that records similar page-size information for the work rather than for cited material. The <size> and <book-page-count> are modeled very differently. The size element is assumed to contain the textual value of the size:

<size units="paragraphs">8</size>

while the page count element is an EMPTY element that stores its value in the @count attribute:

<book-page-count count="26"/>

Tagging Ordinal Numbers

Edition Statements: Edition statements (<edition>) in BITS books are allowed both within the book metadata (<book-meta>, <book-part-meta>, <collection-meta>, etc.) and within citations (<mixed-citation> or <element-citation>). In both uses, edition statements are frequently given as ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.) and often abbreviated with a “th”, “rd”, or similar suffix. These ordinals may either directly follow the number (4th) or be placed in a superscript following the number (4<sup>th</sup>). BITS allows some flexibility in placing these ordinals, and each publisher or archive will need to decide whether or not these ordinal suffixes are part of the <edition> element’s content.

For example, consider the edition statement “3rd” used within a <mixed-citation>:

Archives and publishers who wish to regularize content for searching can eliminate these extra characters and tag the edition as <edition>3<edition>.
Archives who wish record each detail of the printed volume exactly can retain these extra characters:
- inside the edition statement: <edition>3<sup>rd</sup><edition>
- outside the edition statement inside the text of a mixed citation: <edition>3<edition><sup>rd</sup> or
- inside the edition statement, using the @designator attribute to preserve the edition number:
```
<edition designator="3">3<sup>rd</sup></edition>
```

Volume Numbers: In BITS books, the volume number element (<volume>) is used only inside citations and not as part of book metadata. Inside citations (<mixed-citation> or <element-citation>), a volume number with ordinals can be:

inside the volume number: <volume>1<sup>st</sup><volume> or
outside the volume number inside the text of a mixed citation: <volume>1<volume><sup>st</sup>

The related <volume-id> element is used to record an identifier, such as a DOI, that describes an entire volume of a journal or series.

Tagging Personal Names

For material on the uses of <name> and <string-name> in all types of citations, see Names and String Names in Citations that is part of the section on Tagging Personal Names.

Titles in Citations

Titles are critical components of citations, but there is not a single “title” element used within citations. There are hierarchies of titles, and different elements are used to tag the various levels of hierarchy.

For example, a book (top-level) contains an chapter (sub-level). This would be tagged:

Book title tagged as <source>, and
Chapter or module title tagged as <part-title>.

As another example, a journal (top-level) contains an article (sub-level). This would be tagged:

Journal name/title tagged as <source>, and
Article title tagged as <article-title>.

Within a bibliographic reference (<mixed-citation> or <element-citation> and similar elements), the <source> element names the title of the resource being referenced (the top-most title in the citation). For example, a <source> element might contain:

the name of a journal;
a book title;
the name of podcast;
a report title;
a conference proceedings title;
the name of a audio, television, radio, or streaming program;
the name of a software product (“Oxygen Editor”, “Microsoft Excel”);
the “name” of a website;
for data citations, the name of the top-hierarchical level of a data repository; or
the name or title of any resource being cited (patent, standard, thesis, working paper, etc.).

Here the <source> is the title of a report:

<mixed-citation publication-type="report" publisher-type="government">
  <collab-name>Federal Highway Administration</collab-name> (FHWA). 
  (<year iso-8601-date="1992">1992</year>). &#x201C;<part-title>Evaluating 
  scour at bridges</part-title>.&#x201D; <source>Hydr. Engrg.
  Circular No.  18</source>: <gov>FHWA-IP-90-017</gov>, 
  <institution>Office of Engineering, Bridge Div.</institution>, Washington, 
  D.C.</mixed-citation>

If the source title is repeated in multiple languages, the element <source> should be repeated, once for each language. For example, if a book was published in French, the <source> element would contain the French title, and one or more additional <source> elements might contain the equivalent English or German book titles. In previous versions of BITS, the element <trans-source> named the resource when the resource title was presented in more than one language. The <trans-source> is now deprecated.

The hierarchical level just below the resource (which names the part of the resource being cited, for example, the title of the article within the journal) is tagged differently depending on the type or resource being cited.

For example:

For journal citations, the <source> is the name of the journal, and the title of the article being cited is <article-title>.
For preprint citations, the title of the preprint is <article-title>.
For book citations, the <source> is the name of the book, and the title of the book chapter, module, lesson, part, or other-named book division that is being cited is a <part-title>. (Note: the deprecated element <chapter-title> was used for this in past versions of JATS.)
For citing a specific episode or similar of a podcast, streaming show, radio broadcast, cable show, television news, etc., the name of the show, podcast, etc. is the <source>, and a <part-title> names the episode cited. For example: <part-title>The Beetle Whisperer</part-title>, <source>All Thing Considered</source>.
For citing data sources, the name of the data repository is usually tagged as a <source>, but it may also be tagged as a <data-title>. A data citation may use as many <data-title> elements as necessary to name the multiple levels of a hierarchical data source.
For citing a standalone audio/video/multimedia/podcast, the “title” of the work will typically be thought of as the <source> rather than as any of the title elements, e.g., <source>How to build and fire a mini-cannon</source>. If the audio/video/multimedia/podcast is part of a series, the series name should be the <source>, and the episode title should be a <part-title>.
For citing a video within a journal, if the citation type is “video”, the journal name would be the <source>, and the title of the video would be tagged as a <part-title>.

Here the <part-title> is the title of a chapter in a book (named by <source>):

<mixed-citation publication-type="book" publication-format="print">
  <string-name><surname>Al-Ibrahim</surname>,
  <given-names>MS</given-names></string-name>,
  <string-name><surname>Gross</surname>,
  <given-names>JY</given-names></string-name>. 
  In: <part-title>Tobacco use</part-title>.
  <source>Clinical methods: the history, 
  physical, and laboratory examinations</source>.
  <publisher-loc>Stoneham (MA)</publisher-loc>:
  <publisher-name>Butterworth Publishers</publisher-name>;
  &copy;<date-in-citation content-type="copyright-year"
  iso-8601-date="1990">1990</date-in-citation>.
  p. <fpage>214</fpage>-<lpage>216</lpage>.</mixed-citation>

In summary, the title elements allowed in current citations are:

<article-title>	For journal articles
<chapter-title>	For books (deprecated in favor of <part-title>)
<data-title>	For all levels of data sources, or for all levels that are part of the <source>. (data citations only)
<issue-title>	Theme or special title for a journal issue
<part-title>	For the title of a portion, part, or item in a larger resource, a title at a lower hierarchical level than the whole
<trans-title>	Now deprecated. Repeat the appropriate title element for titles in additional languages.

Book Interchange Tag Suite (BITS) Version 2.2 Tag Library

Citation Details

Sizes and Units

Top-most Title of the Resource (<source>)

Not Just <article-title>s