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| <title>OpenOffice Bibliographic Project Discussion and Issues</title> |
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| <h2>OpenOffice Bibliographic Project Discussion and |
| Issues</h2> |
| |
| <p>2005-December-4</p> |
| |
| <h3>Contents</h3> |
| <ol> |
| <li><a href="#1">Document Style Options</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#2">Revert to declared style</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#3">And symbols to the automatic footnote numbering |
| scheme.</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#4">Provide Support for Footnote Citation Styles by Adapting |
| the Field Editor for the Bibliography Tables.</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#5">Modify the ‘Bibliographic Entry>Edit’ |
| Panel to support appropriate field entry options for the citation type |
| selected.</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#6">Defining citations and references different treatment may |
| be needed for first and subsequent use of the citation.</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#7">There needs to be a mechanism for transferring the |
| internal Document Bibliographic entries to and from the database to allow |
| import and export from OpenOffice.</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#8">Some of the Bibliographic Databasefields need to be |
| increased in length.</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#9">Should we persist with the DBASE Bibliographic Database |
| ?</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#10">It would be nice to have search capability to Internet |
| Bibliographic Databases</a></li> |
| </ol> |
| <hr> |
| |
| <p align="right"><em>A printer friendly PDF version of this page is available |
| <a href="detailed.pdf">detailed.pdf (63Kb)</a></em></p> |
| |
| <h3><a name="1">1. Add a selection option for 'Document Style' to cover whole |
| document.</a></h3> |
| |
| <p>We need to add user selection for a 'Document Style' to apply to a whole |
| document. I see two options for doing this -</p> |
| <ol> |
| <li><p>Adding a new tab-panel 'Document Styles' to File>Properties.</p> |
| <p>or</p> |
| </li> |
| <li><p>Adding a new tab-panel 'Document Styles' to Format>Page. (Does |
| Page format only apply to the current section or the whole document ?)</p> |
| </li> |
| </ol> |
| |
| <p>This tab-panel would contain a 'Document Style' selection list which |
| include the supported styles eg APA, ASA, Chicago, MLA, German DIN, French |
| ISO, etc. {need to collect full list.}. Also we need provision for the users |
| to create their own styles. (See the list of BibTeX supported styles <a |
| href="bibtex-defs.html">BibTeX supported styles.)</a></p> |
| |
| <h4><a name="1.1">1.1</a>. Document Style Options</h4> |
| |
| <p>Other options in the tab panel could be such things as -</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><p>Style Data import / export; (Endnote <sup>(TM)</sup> and Refman |
| <sup>(TM)</sup> provide style definitions to the general public which |
| could be imported if their import format was decoded)</p> |
| </li> |
| <li><p>'Strictly Enforce Style' (Y/N), This would prevent the user |
| modifying the document style aspects defined by the Style Manual. This |
| could make the OO word processor easier to use as many of the functions |
| would be grayed-out. The user would not be so bewildered with choice. The |
| user could at any time turn off 'Strictly Enforce Style', and have access |
| to all settings.</p> |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>There would also need to be provision for options which are provided by |
| the selected style that the user can choose. Eg. The Chicago Style allows |
| selection of either in-text, footnote or endnotes, or a dual footnote |
| comments endnote citation scheme. Perhaps a 'Style Option' tab would handle |
| this.</p> |
| |
| <p>The information associated with Document Style would include the following |
| methods for Bibliographic citation -</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>in-text</li> |
| <li>footnotes</li> |
| <li>endnotes</li> |
| <li>endnotes and footnotes. (requires symbols detailed in item 2 the field |
| formats for Bibliographic citation and Bibliographic Tables (Reference |
| Lists and Bibliographic Lists).</li> |
| <li>special editing for Bibliographic Tables eg repeated author names |
| indicated by a three-em dash eg. (they should be a continuous line not |
| dashes)-</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <font>Charles Dickens, <i>A Tale of Two Cities.</i> London: Penguin Books, |
| 2000.<br> |
| <span style="font-family: courier">———</span>. |
| <i>Nicholas Nickelby.</i> London: Penguin Classics, 1956.<br> |
| <span style="font-family: courier">———</span>. |
| <i>Oliver Twist</i>. New York, Random House,1965.</font><br> |
| </blockquote> |
| |
| <h4>1.2. Other Style considerations</h4> |
| |
| <p>Page formating constraints (the MLA Manual specifies page margins (need to |
| check details)<br> |
| There may be particular requirements for Section, Chapter and Heading |
| styles.</p> |
| |
| <div align="right"> |
| <a href="#Project">Top of Page</a></div> |
| |
| <h4>1.3. Conversion code</h4> |
| |
| <p>When a new 'Document Style' was selected there would need to be some |
| format conversion process that would be applied to an existing document. This |
| would change the citation style from the current to the new, the trickiest |
| ones to do would be 'author-date in-text' to footnote or endnote or visa |
| versa.</p> |
| |
| <p>An Issue: In order to allow a user change citation methods it will be |
| necessary to consider how we treat the footnote entry. It seems to me there |
| are two options. Utilise the standard footnote entry code, or to have a |
| special citation footnote.</p> |
| |
| <h3><a name="2">2. Revert to declared style</a></h3> |
| |
| <p>Is there a 'revert to declared style' function in OpenOffice ? In MS Word |
| there is a function that resets text to the declared format. It removes all |
| user made minor adjustments with fonts, margins etc. This facility is |
| probably required to make the above work and very useful in it own right.</p> |
| |
| <h3><a name="3">3. And symbols to the automatic footnote numbering |
| scheme.</a></h3> |
| |
| <p>The Chicago Manual of Style stipulates that when Endnotes and Footnotes |
| are both used the Endnotes are consecutively numbered (1,2,3 ...) and for the |
| Footnotes symbols are to be used. The series they suggest are -</p> |
| |
| <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0"> |
| <tbody> |
| <tr> |
| <td><img src="sym1.gif" name="Graphic1" |
| alt="a list of symbols like # * ect." align="left" width="188" |
| height="47" border="0"></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td>As more symbols are needed they are doubled and trebled -</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td><img src="sym2.gif" name="Graphic2" |
| alt="a list of symbols like ## ** ### *** ect." align="left" |
| width="570" height="50" border="0"><br clear="left"> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| </tbody> |
| </table> |
| The proposal is to add this set of symbols to the automatic numbering options |
| for footnotes. |
| |
| <p>The processing of the footnotes will need to be adjusted for symbols, as |
| the symbol sequence is restarted at the initial symbol ( * ), for each new |
| page they are use on.</p> |
| |
| <h3><a name="4">4.</a> Provide Support for Footnote Citation Styles by |
| Adapting the Field Editor for the Bibliography Tables.</h3> |
| The current Insert>Indexes and Tables>'Bibliographic Entry' mechanism |
| [<a href="biblio1_html_4a7d5d98.png">screen image</a>] which is use to select |
| fields and format Tables [including the bibliographic table] should be |
| extended to enable defining footnote citation fields. Currently Bibliographic |
| Entry has only two options available - selection from bibliographic database |
| or document content. Then there is the selection box for the 'short name'; |
| which is the reference string to be inserted with the text, eg. |
| [CharlesE1978]. This mechanism needs to be extended to the footnote or |
| endnote method. These methods require this information in a more complex |
| format in a footnote or endnote; for example<sup>34</sup>,<br> |
| |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <font>34. T.M. Charles-Edwards,"Honour and status in Some Irish and Welsh |
| Prose Tales.",<i>Eriu</i>, xxxvi, 1978.</font></blockquote> |
| |
| <p>The Bibliographic Entry selection box should be changed from 'short name' |
| to 'citation type' - Book, Article, Journal Article, Collection etc. A new |
| button 'Customise Citation Styles' would bring up a new field selection and |
| formating panel very similar (maybe identical) to the table format editor. |
| Note that the Citation Style and style options will have been set in the new |
| File>Properties tab-panel 'Document Styles' mentioned above at section 1. |
| Also the 'Customise Citation Styles' button would be inoperative and greyed |
| out if 'Strictly Enforce Style' is set to 'Yes', so as not mess up the style |
| settings.</p> |
| |
| <p>Note: when the citation formats are defined and provided for the various |
| Document Style Conventions the average user will not have to use this. All |
| the fields will be predefined.</p> |
| |
| <div align="right"> |
| <a href="#Project">Top of Page</a></div> |
| |
| <h3><a name="5">5</a>. Modify the ‘Bibliographic Entry>Edit’ |
| Panel to support appropriate field entry options for the citation type |
| selected.</h3> |
| |
| <p>Currently the Insert>Indexes and Tables>Bibliographic |
| Entry>Edit>New Panel [<a href="biblio1_html_1bd246eb.gif">screen |
| image</a>] offers a selection box that allows the user to selection citation |
| type from a pick list eg Book, Article, Manual, Incollection etc. And is |
| presented with a selection of 29 fields in which to place their data. The |
| preferred action would be that the selection of a citation type would |
| indicate which fields are Required, Optional, or Ignored for that citation |
| type. See a screen-print of sixpack as an example of such an <a |
| href="sixpack.jpg">editor</a> .</p> |
| |
| <p>The list of citation types and fields that are used in BibTeX are given |
| below and should be considered as a minimum requirement.</p> |
| <dl> |
| <dd><strong>article</strong> - An article from a journal or magazine. |
| Required fields: <tt>author</tt>, <tt>title</tt>, <tt>journal</tt>, |
| <tt>year</tt>. Optional fields: <tt>volume</tt>, <tt>number</tt>, |
| <tt>pages</tt> , <tt>month</tt>, <tt>note</tt>.</dd> |
| <dd><strong>Book</strong> - A book with an explicit publisher. Required |
| fields: <tt>author</tt> or <tt>editor</tt>, <tt>title</tt>, |
| <tt>publisher</tt> , <tt>year</tt>. Optional fields: <tt>volume</tt> or |
| <tt>number</tt> , <tt>series</tt>, <tt>address</tt>, <tt>edition</tt>, |
| <tt>month</tt> , <tt>note</tt> .</dd> |
| <dd><strong>Booklet</strong> - A work that is printed and bound, but |
| without a named publisher or sponsoring institution. Required field: |
| <tt>title</tt>. Optional fields: <tt>author</tt>, <tt>howpublished</tt> |
| , <tt>address</tt>, <tt>month</tt>, <tt>year</tt>, <tt>note</tt>.</dd> |
| <dd><strong>Conference</strong> - The same as <tt>INPROCEEDINGS</tt> , |
| included for <i>Scribe</i> compatibility.</dd> |
| <dd><strong>Inbook</strong> - A part of a book, which may be a chapter |
| (or section or whatever) and/or a range of pages. Required fields: |
| <tt>author</tt> or <tt>editor</tt>, <tt>title</tt>, <tt>chapter</tt> |
| and/or <tt>pages</tt>, <tt>publisher</tt>, <tt>year</tt> . Optional |
| fields: <tt>volume</tt> or <tt>number</tt>, <tt>series</tt>, |
| <tt>type</tt> , <tt>address</tt>, <tt>edition</tt>, <tt>month</tt>, |
| <tt>note</tt>.<br> |
| <strong>Incollection</strong> - A part of a book having its own title. |
| Required fields: <tt>author</tt>, <tt>title</tt>, <tt>booktitle</tt>, |
| <tt>publisher</tt>, <tt>year</tt>. Optional fields: <tt>editor</tt>, |
| <tt>volume</tt> or <tt>number</tt>, <tt>series</tt>, <tt>type</tt>, |
| <tt>chapter</tt> , <tt>pages</tt>, <tt>address</tt>, <tt>edition</tt>, |
| <tt>month</tt> , <tt>note</tt>.<br> |
| <strong>Inproceedings</strong> - An article in a conference |
| proceedings. Required fields: <tt>author</tt>, <tt>title</tt>, |
| <tt>booktitle</tt>, <tt>year</tt>. Optional fields: <tt>editor</tt>, |
| <tt>volume</tt> or <tt>number</tt>, <tt>series</tt>, |
| <tt>pages</tt>,<tt>address</tt>, <tt>month</tt> , |
| <tt>organization</tt>, <tt>publisher</tt>, <tt>note</tt> .<br> |
| <strong>Manual</strong> - Technical documentation. Required field: |
| <tt>title</tt>. Optional fields: <tt>author</tt>, |
| <tt>organization</tt>, <tt>address</tt>, <tt>edition</tt>, |
| <tt>month</tt>, <tt>year</tt>, <tt>note</tt>.<br> |
| <strong>Mastersthesis</strong> - A Master's thesis. Required fields: |
| <tt>author</tt>, <tt>title</tt>, <tt>school</tt>, <tt>year</tt> . |
| Optional fields: <tt>type</tt>, <tt>address</tt>, <tt>month</tt>, |
| <tt>note</tt> .<br> |
| <strong>Misc</strong> - Use this type when nothing else fits. Required |
| fields: none. Optional fields: <tt>author</tt>, <tt>title</tt>, |
| <tt>howpublished</tt>, <tt>month</tt>, <tt>year</tt>, <tt>note</tt>.<br> |
| <strong>Phdthesis</strong> - A PhD thesis. Required fields: |
| <tt>author</tt>, <tt>title</tt>, <tt>school</tt>, <tt>year</tt> . |
| Optional fields: <tt>type</tt>, <tt>address</tt>, <tt>month</tt>, |
| <tt>note</tt>.<br> |
| <strong>Proceedings</strong> - The proceedings of a conference. |
| Required fields: <tt>title</tt>, <tt>year</tt>. Optional fields: |
| <tt>editor</tt>, <tt>volume</tt> or <tt>number</tt>, <tt>series</tt>, |
| <tt>address</tt> , <tt>month</tt>, <tt>organization</tt>, |
| <tt>publisher</tt>, <tt>note</tt>.<br> |
| <strong>Techreport</strong> - A report published by a school or other |
| institution, usually numbered within a series. Required fields: |
| <tt>author</tt>, <tt>title</tt>, <tt>institution</tt>, <tt>year</tt>. |
| Optional fields: <tt>type</tt>, <tt>number</tt>, <tt>address</tt> , |
| <tt>month</tt>, <tt>note</tt>.<br> |
| <strong>Unpublished</strong> - A document having an author and title, |
| but not formally published. Required fields: <tt>author</tt>, |
| <tt>title</tt>, <tt>note</tt>. Optional fields: <tt>month</tt>, |
| <tt>year</tt>.</dd> |
| </dl> |
| |
| <p><a href="bibtex-defs.html">The full text with field definitions and usage |
| hints.</a></p> |
| |
| <div align="right"> |
| <a href="#Project">Top of Page</a></div> |
| |
| <h3><a name="6">6.</a> Defining citations and references different treatment |
| maybe needed for first and subsequent use of the citation.</h3> |
| |
| <p>There is a tedious and fault prone aspects of the footnote / endnote |
| citation method - the maintenance the Initial and Subsequent citations in the |
| correct order as one edits the text. In the mad rush to complete the paper as |
| the deadline approaches, a piece of text is moved and the Initial Citation |
| reference now comes after the Subsequent reference, and the examiner gives |
| you a red mark.</p> |
| |
| <p>I do not know enough about the internals of OpenOffice to suggest how this |
| would be implemented. Two options would be to include a check after |
| bibliographic entry or to check and adjust when the update fields function is |
| activated. This would require the citation field to have an identifier which |
| signified that a citation's initial and subsequent appearances were related |
| to the same reference in order to check if the current Initial citation is |
| still the initial one after some text editing. That is not using string |
| matching but reference identifiers.</p> |
| |
| <p>This also requires that with style that require it all of the citation |
| formats will have two versions; the full initial one and the shorter |
| subsequent one.</p> |
| |
| <p>Example. An Initial Reference -</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <font>'Oisin and Patrick' in <i>Irish Myths and Legends</i>, Lady Gregory. |
| (London: Running Press, 1989), 412-421.</font></blockquote> |
| |
| <p>A Subsequent Reference -</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <font>'Oisin and Patrick' in <i>Irish Myths and Legends</i>, |
| 450.</font></blockquote> |
| or just - |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <font>'Oisin and Patrick', 25.</font></blockquote> |
| |
| <h4>6.1. Some Implementation Issues</h4> |
| |
| <p>In order to allow a user change citation methods it will be necessary to |
| consider how we treat the footnote / endnote entry. It seems to me there are |
| two options. Utilise the standard footnote / endnote entry code, or to have a |
| special citation footnote.</p> |
| |
| <p>I will give some examples. A document has in-text author-date citations. |
| This is what is currently implemented. eg.</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <font>The story of Finn (Gregory1989) is central to our |
| argument.</font>/</blockquote> |
| |
| <p>We now change the citation setting to footnote method and it deletes the |
| In-text field, creates a footnote and places the citation field into the |
| footnote.</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <font>The story of Finn<sup>1</sup> is central to our argument.<br> |
| </font> -----<br> |
| <font>1. Lady Gregory,<i>Irish Myths and Legends</i> ,. (London: Running |
| Press, 1989)</font></blockquote> |
| |
| <p>This seems simple enough. But what happens if we are starting with the |
| footnote / endnote style, and change to the in-text style. Will it be just as |
| simple a matter to find all the bibliographic entries, go to the footnote / |
| endnote reference, delete the footnote / endnote and insert a new in-text |
| author-date citations? What do we do if the user has added extra text into |
| citation footnote / endnote ? -</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <font>1. Lady Gregory ,<i>Irish Myths and Legends</i>,. (London: Running |
| Press, 1989) Note that this was originally published in |
| 1903.</font></blockquote> |
| |
| <p>Do we than leave the footnote / endnote with just the added text? And |
| deleted if there was no added text ?</p> |
| |
| <blockquote> |
| <font>The story of Finn (Gregory1989) <sup>1</sup> is central to our |
| argument. eg.<br> |
| -----</font><br> |
| <font>1. Note that this was originally published in |
| 1903.</font></blockquote> |
| As more symbols are needed they are doubled and trebled - The proposal is to |
| add this set of symbols to the automatic numbering options for footnotes. |
| |
| <p>Would it help to have a special field for footnote / endnote or citations, |
| and if we did how do we deal with added comments? A user writable text area |
| with the citation field ?</p> |
| |
| <div align="right"> |
| <a href="#Project">Top of Page</a></div> |
| |
| <h4>6.2 The inset citation dialog will need to support types of citations |
| within a citation style.</h4> |
| |
| <p>This will be required in order to support the following type of citation |
| system -</p> |
| |
| <p>If I quote a document(book/journal/article etc.) without a page it looks |
| like</p> |
| |
| <p>"This method is very reliable (AUTHOR YEAR)"<br> |
| f.e. "This method is very reliable (BASLER 2003)<br> |
| or<br> |
| "But AUTHOR (YEAR) showed that..."<br> |
| f.e. "But WILSON(2002) showed that this method is not very reliable."<br> |
| If a page or some pages are quoted (direct or indirect) it must look like<br> |
| "'This method is very reliable' (AUTHOR YEAR:12)"<br> |
| f.e. "'This method is very reliable' (BASLER 2003:12)"<br> |
| or<br> |
| "'This method is very reliable' (BASLER 2003:12 ff.)"<br> |
| or<br> |
| "AUTHOR (YEAR:12) stated 'This method is very reliable.'"<br> |
| f.e. "BASLER (2003:12) stated 'This method is very reliable.'"<br> |
| or<br> |
| "BASLER (2003:12 f.) concludes that this method is very reliable.'"</p> |
| |
| <p><br> |
| Some comments on that:<br> |
| 1. The AUTHOR(s) must be in small capitals (as every person everywhere in the |
| text).<br> |
| 2. One author: "AUTHOR 2003" Two authors: "AUTHOR1 & AUTHOR2 2003" Three |
| or more: "AUTHOR1 ET AL. 2003"</p> |
| |
| <p>If there are more than one publication of an author in the same year it |
| must look like:<br> |
| "BASLER 2003a" and "BASLER 2003b" a.s.o.<br> |
| In the bibliography the above example would look like<br> |
| BASLER, M. (YEAR): Book title. City1 et al.<br> |
| or<br> |
| BASLER, M. & D. WILSON (YEAR): Book title. City1 et al. or BASLER, M. D., |
| WILSON, A. NONAME & B. NONAME (YEAR): Book title. City1 et al.</p> |
| |
| <p>Note that in the bibliography index ALL authors including their initials |
| must be stated, in the text citations only the first, followed by "ET AL."</p> |
| |
| <div align="right"> |
| <a href="#Project">Top of Page</a></div> |
| |
| <h3><a name="7">7.</a> There needs to be a mechanism for transferring the |
| internal Document Bibliographic entries to and from the database to allow |
| import and export from OpenOffice.</h3> |
| |
| <p>Currently if a users creates Bibliographic entries with the |
| Insert>Indexes and tables>Bibliographic Entry>New function, these |
| entries can not be easily exported from the document.</p> |
| |
| <p>As the first priority there needs to be an export and import of |
| bibliographic data in the BibTeX format. As this is the most common format |
| and the one most other bibliographic tools will utilise.</p> |
| |
| <h3><a name="8">8. Some of the Bibliographic Database fields need to be |
| increased in length.</a></h3> |
| |
| <p>Some users have run into the field length limit of the varchar datatype |
| (or of the Input form). At least Title and Authors, and possibly some others |
| should be made longvarchar. Currently if the user changes the field |
| definitions in the database the bibliographic functions - Bibliographic |
| Entry, and Bibliographic Table cease to work on the altered table. Some |
| journal articles have hundreds of authors !</p> |
| |
| <h3><a name="9">9.</a> Should we persist with the DBASE Bibliographic |
| Database?</h3> |
| |
| <p>Or, to replace it with storage in BibTeX format and utilise other |
| OpenSource (eg. sixpack or pybliographer) work (code or design) for a BibTeX |
| editor and browser. We should also check the OpenOffice Database project for |
| their view and plans.</p> |
| |
| <h3><a name="10">10.</a> It would be nice to have search capability to |
| Internet Bibliographic Database</h3> |
| |
| <p>P.S from an Institute of Biochemistry requested the ability to connect and |
| query on-line databases (like Medline), or at least import records from saved |
| queries. He wrote - "PubMed for example would allow your browser to save the |
| queries in several formats that are easy to import."</p> |
| |
| <div align="right"> |
| <p><a href="#Project">Top of Page</a></p> |
| </div> |
| <hr> |
| |
| <p>By <a href="mailto:dnw@openoffice.org">David N. Wilson</a></p> |
| </body> |
| </html> |
