org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[John Kitchin]

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In natbib there is \citetext{priv.\ comm.} which is used to add a textual
citation to the bibliography that doesn't have a key associated with it.

I don't see a way to get something like that in org-cite, since it seems
that a key is always required.

This isn't currently recognized as a cite, but something like this seems
like a reasonable solution to me.

[cite/text:@ private communication]

John

-----------------------------------
Professor John Kitchin (he/him/his)
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu

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org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[Emmanuel Charpentier]

> In natbib there is \citetext{priv.\ comm.} which is used to add a
> textual citation to the bibliography that doesn't have a key
> associated with it. 

Hmmm... why should you bother to reference a personal communication ?
Such private communications may be mentionned in the text (possibly by
a footnote) but can't be properly referenced (since there is nothing to
refer to). If you feel that this communication must be referred to, you
should give it some (written) support and (properly) reference this
support.

ISTR that at least CSL and BibLaTeX have types appropriates for a
manuscript or a letter. You may also consider your own notes as
documents and reference them (properly).

> I don't see a way to get something like that in org-cite, since it
> seems that a key is always required.

Indeed : the key is, in relational algebra terms, the primary key of
the bibliographic relation...

> This isn't currently recognized as a cite, but something like this
> seems like a reasonable solution to me.

> [cite/text:@ private communication]

Such special casing is probably a bugs' nest... err.. hive. And
pointless, as explained /supra/.

HTH,

--
Emmanuel Charpentier

> John

Re: org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[John Kitchin]

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On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 7:28 PM Emmanuel Charpentier <
emm.charpentier@free.fr> wrote:

> > In natbib there is \citetext{priv.\ comm.} which is used to add a
> > textual citation to the bibliography that doesn't have a key
> > associated with it.
>
> Hmmm... why should you bother to reference a personal communication ?
> Such private communications may be mentionned in the text (possibly by
> a footnote) but can't be properly referenced (since there is nothing to
> refer to). If you feel that this communication must be referred to, you
> should give it some (written) support and (properly) reference this
> support.
>

Who is to say why someone would bother. It is a command on page two of
http://tug.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/natbib/natnotes.pdf that one can
use.

It is also possible to use  \nocite{*} as a cite, which includes all
references from a bibliography, and yet contains no key. Even funnier in a
way is \nocite{key} which just adds entries to the bibliography, but does
not cite them in the body of a document.

Footnotes are not always allowed in publications, and for various reasons
not worth defending, in proposals one might want to put this in the
references because of space limitations.

I count at least 10 examples of such personal communications in the
references in my library of ~1800 pdfs, so they aren't very common, but
certainly they exist in the wild. Whether people should do it or not, they
do.


>
> ISTR that at least CSL and BibLaTeX have types appropriates for a
> manuscript or a letter. You may also consider your own notes as
> documents and reference them (properly).
>
> > I don't see a way to get something like that in org-cite, since it
> > seems that a key is always required.
>
> Indeed : the key is, in relational algebra terms, the primary key of
> the bibliographic relation...
>

I think of it more like a lambda function, but for a cite reference, where
you
define what you want inline. It is pretty common in scientific papers
and proposals to see that.

It may not make sense to make an @misc bibtex entry for that purpose, since
it is a one time citation for that document, and is like a lambda reference.


> > This isn't currently recognized as a cite, but something like this
> > seems like a reasonable solution to me.
>
> > [cite/text:@ private communication]
>
> Such special casing is probably a bugs' nest... err.. hive. And
> pointless, as explained /supra/.


> HTH,
>
> --
> Emmanuel Charpentier
>
> > John
>
>

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Re: org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[Matt Price]

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Certainly citation of personal communications is common in the fields of
history and philosophy of science, where it represents an effort to
responsibly represent the source of ideas owed to other persons.  It's not
really a question of whether you personally would do it; it's a question of
whether org will support a practice that exists in some real-world
contexts.

On Mon., Jul. 19, 2021, 8:48 p.m. John Kitchin, <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu>
wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 7:28 PM Emmanuel Charpentier <
> emm.charpentier@free.fr> wrote:
>
>> > In natbib there is \citetext{priv.\ comm.} which is used to add a
>> > textual citation to the bibliography that doesn't have a key
>> > associated with it.
>>
>> Hmmm... why should you bother to reference a personal communication ?
>> Such private communications may be mentionned in the text (possibly by
>> a footnote) but can't be properly referenced (since there is nothing to
>> refer to). If you feel that this communication must be referred to, you
>> should give it some (written) support and (properly) reference this
>> support.
>>
>
> Who is to say why someone would bother. It is a command on page two of
> http://tug.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/natbib/natnotes.pdf that one can
> use.
>
> It is also possible to use  \nocite{*} as a cite, which includes all
> references from a bibliography, and yet contains no key. Even funnier in a
> way is \nocite{key} which just adds entries to the bibliography, but does
> not cite them in the body of a document.
>
> Footnotes are not always allowed in publications, and for various reasons
> not worth defending, in proposals one might want to put this in the
> references because of space limitations.
>
> I count at least 10 examples of such personal communications in the
> references in my library of ~1800 pdfs, so they aren't very common, but
> certainly they exist in the wild. Whether people should do it or not, they
> do.
>
>
>>
>> ISTR that at least CSL and BibLaTeX have types appropriates for a
>> manuscript or a letter. You may also consider your own notes as
>> documents and reference them (properly).
>>
>> > I don't see a way to get something like that in org-cite, since it
>> > seems that a key is always required.
>>
>> Indeed : the key is, in relational algebra terms, the primary key of
>> the bibliographic relation...
>>
>
> I think of it more like a lambda function, but for a cite reference, where
> you
> define what you want inline. It is pretty common in scientific papers
> and proposals to see that.
>
> It may not make sense to make an @misc bibtex entry for that purpose,
> since it is a one time citation for that document, and is like a lambda
> reference.
>
>
>> > This isn't currently recognized as a cite, but something like this
>> > seems like a reasonable solution to me.
>>
>> > [cite/text:@ private communication]
>>
>> Such special casing is probably a bugs' nest... err.. hive. And
>> pointless, as explained /supra/.
>
>
>> HTH,
>>
>> --
>> Emmanuel Charpentier
>>
>> > John
>>
>>

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Re: org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[Emmanuel Charpentier]

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Le lundi 19 juillet 2021 à 20:47 -0400, John Kitchin a écrit :

[ Snip... ]

> It is also possible to use  \nocite{*} as a cite, which includes all
> references from a bibliography, and yet contains no key.

Hence your reluctance to work from a set of larger databases, which
would include irrelevant reference. AFAIUI, your workflow is based on
the creation of a per-publication database.

> Even funnier in a way is \nocite{key} which just adds entries to the
> bibliography, but does not cite them in the body of a document.

Do you mean that thes empty entries will be added to the original .bib
database ??? Or simply that these entries will be added to the (unseen)
list of \bibitem entries that will be typeset as the reference list ?

> Footnotes are not always allowed in publications, and for various
> reasons not worth defending, in proposals one might want to put this
> in the references because of space limitations.

FWIW, \citetext will not add anything to the reference list (see
enclosed example...). BTW : what should it add ?

> I count at least 10 examples of such personal communications in the
> references in my library of ~1800 pdfs, so they aren't very common,
> but certainly they exist in the wild. Whether people should do it or
> not, they do.

I certainly agree with that (I have used such unpublished information
myself). My point is rather that, since there is nothing to refer to,
they have no place in a reference list ; unless someone creates
something to refer to (i. e. an entry in the bibliography database...).

> > ISTR that at least CSL and BibLaTeX have types appropriates for a
> > manuscript or a letter. You may also consider your own notes as
> > documents and reference them (properly).
> > 
> > > I don't see a way to get something like that in org-cite, since
> > it
> > > seems that a key is always required.
> > 
> > Indeed : the key is, in relational algebra terms, the primary key
> > of
> > the bibliographic relation...
> > 
> 
> 
> I think of it more like a lambda function, but for a cite reference,
> where you
> define what you want inline. 

The fly in the ointment being that you have to "create on the fly" what
will be in the text and what will be in the reference list...

> It is pretty common in scientific papers
> and proposals to see that. 
> 
> It may not make sense to make an @misc bibtex entry for that purpose,
> since it is a one time citation for that document, and is like a
> lambda reference.

The problem with that approach is that the reader has to somehow
reverse your function (which is by no way guranteed to be
bijective...).

--
Emmanuel Charpentier


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Re: org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[Emmanuel Charpentier]

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Le mardi 20 juillet 2021 à 02:55 -0400, Matt Price a écrit :
> Certainly citation of personal communications is common in the fields
> of history and philosophy of science, where it represents an effort
> to responsibly represent the source of ideas owed to other persons.

I don't dispute that.

>   It's not really a question of whether you personally would do it;
> it's a question of whether org will support a practice that exists in
> some real-world contexts.  

What I dispute is that such "non-citations" are dangling pointers,
better replaced by incises or footnotes ... or proper citations.

--
Emmanuel Charpentier


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Re: org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[Bruce D'Arcus]

On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 8:48 PM John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 7:28 PM Emmanuel Charpentier <emm.charpentier@free.fr> wrote:
>>
>> > In natbib there is \citetext{priv.\ comm.} which is used to add a
>> > textual citation to the bibliography that doesn't have a key
>> > associated with it.
>>
>> Hmmm... why should you bother to reference a personal communication ?
>> Such private communications may be mentionned in the text (possibly by
>> a footnote) but can't be properly referenced (since there is nothing to
>> refer to). If you feel that this communication must be referred to, you
>> should give it some (written) support and (properly) reference this
>> support.
>
>
> Who is to say why someone would bother. It is a command on page two of
> http://tug.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/natbib/natnotes.pdf that one can use.
>
> It is also possible to use  \nocite{*} as a cite, which includes all
> references from a bibliography, and yet contains no key. Even funnier in a way is \nocite{key} which just adds entries to the bibliography, but does not cite them in the body of a document.
>
> Footnotes are not always allowed in publications, and for various reasons not worth defending, in proposals one might want to put this in the references because of space limitations.

If not a footnote, a parenthetical note?

What's the value of a citation and bibliography processor handling
formatting here?

Certainly in the CSL world, this has never been supported, and I don't
ever recall it ever coming up (though I'm sure someone on the Zotero
forum raised it at some point).

I will point out the syntax discussion long predates my participation
in the last year or so.

Perhaps it was raised at some point in the past and rejected?

If not raised, it's not surprising it's not supported now.

Bruce

Re: org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[Stefan Nobis]

John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

> Who is to say why someone would bother. It is a command on page two
> of http://tug.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/natbib/natnotes.pdf that
> one can use.

Hmmm... but I would say that the natbib command \citetext is more a
helper/workaround for the missing prefix/suffix options that biblatex
provides. See also the example in the natbib documentation (~texdoc
natbib~ or http://tug.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/natbib/natbib.pdf)
in section 2.4 (page 8):

  \citetext{see \citealp{jon90}, or even better \citealp{jam91}}

This is possible (and I would say easier) with biblatex and Org with
the prefix/suffix text options/syntax: A way to include some
additional text inside the citation block.

If inside \citetext no other \cite... command is used, its just the
given text in parentheses. No special formatting, no interaction with
the bibliography. Here's the definition of the command (from
natbib.sty):

  \newcommand\citetext[1]{\NAT@open#1\NAT@close}

It's just the given text surrounded by the chosen citation block
markers (either empty for superscripts, "(..)", "[..]", "$<$..$>$", or
"{..}"). So there is not much to gain from this command in the context
of Org with its rather rich cite syntax that is more expressive than
that of natbib.

As Emmanuel said: If you want a proper entry in the bibliography, then
add the item to the database (e.g. @misc{pm, author={Me},
title={Personal Communication}, year=1984}) and cite it as any other
item.

Or use a macro if you want such comments to be easily
searchable/changeable.

-- 
Until the next mail...,
Stefan.

Re: org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[Denis Maier]

Am 20.07.2021 um 13:41 schrieb Bruce D'Arcus:
> On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 8:48 PM John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 19, 2021 at 7:28 PM Emmanuel Charpentier <emm.charpentier@free.fr> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In natbib there is \citetext{priv.\ comm.} which is used to add a
>>>> textual citation to the bibliography that doesn't have a key
>>>> associated with it.

Oh, I didn't know about that one in natbib.

>>>
>>> Hmmm... why should you bother to reference a personal communication ?
>>> Such private communications may be mentionned in the text (possibly by
>>> a footnote) but can't be properly referenced (since there is nothing to
>>> refer to). If you feel that this communication must be referred to, you
>>> should give it some (written) support and (properly) reference this
>>> support.
>>
>>
>> Who is to say why someone would bother. It is a command on page two of
>> http://tug.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/natbib/natnotes.pdf that one can use.
>>
>> It is also possible to use  \nocite{*} as a cite, which includes all
>> references from a bibliography, and yet contains no key. Even funnier in a way is \nocite{key} which just adds entries to the bibliography, but does not cite them in the body of a document.
>>
>> Footnotes are not always allowed in publications, and for various reasons not worth defending, in proposals one might want to put this in the references because of space limitations.
> 
> If not a footnote, a parenthetical note?
> 
> What's the value of a citation and bibliography processor handling
> formatting here?
> 
> Certainly in the CSL world, this has never been supported, and I don't
> ever recall it ever coming up (though I'm sure someone on the Zotero
> forum raised it at some point)

I'm pretty sure I've brought that up at some point :-)
FWIW, Biblatex knows a similar command \mancite.

Use cases:
Beyond personal communication, which I personally have never used, there 
are disciplines (classics, theology, religious studies) that refer to 
some classical works (Bible, Quran, etc.) with certain well-known 
abbrevations. Usually those works don't appear in the bibliography. This 
leads to problems with automatic citations, especially when you also use 
"ibid." and such...

Bla [cite:@doe].
Blabla (Gen 1).
Bla [cite:@doe].

=>
Bla (Doe 2020).
Blabla (Gen 1).
Bla (ibid.).


With biblatex you can use \mancite to reset the citation trackers.

Bla [cite:@doe].
Blabla (Gen 1)\mancite.
Bla [cite:@doe].

=>
Bla (Doe 2020).
Blabla (Gen 1).
Bla (Doe 2020).

Denis

Re: org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[Bruce D'Arcus]

On Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 8:50 AM Denis Maier <denismaier@mailbox.org> wrote:

> > Certainly in the CSL world, this has never been supported, and I don't
> > ever recall it ever coming up (though I'm sure someone on the Zotero
> > forum raised it at some point)
>
> I'm pretty sure I've brought that up at some point :-)

:-)

> FWIW, Biblatex knows a similar command \mancite.
>
> Use cases:
> Beyond personal communication, which I personally have never used, there
> are disciplines (classics, theology, religious studies) that refer to
> some classical works (Bible, Quran, etc.) with certain well-known
> abbrevations. Usually those works don't appear in the bibliography.

The cases here a little different though.

This is basically work so well-known in a field that they are omitted
from the bibliography.

Effectively, the opposite of "nocite"; so "nobib"?

The example of personal communications that John raised is a little different.

I still think it's either a citation with a reference, or it's not;
just an in-text note.

> This leads to problems with automatic citations, especially when you also use
> "ibid." and such...
>
> Bla [cite:@doe].
> Blabla (Gen 1).
> Bla [cite:@doe].
>
> =>
> Bla (Doe 2020).
> Blabla (Gen 1).
> Bla (ibid.).
>
>
> With biblatex you can use \mancite to reset the citation trackers.

Can one workaround this now?

Or if not, by adding a "nobib" style per above at some point?

Bruce

Re: org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[Denis Maier]

Am 20.07.2021 um 15:50 schrieb Bruce D'Arcus:
> On Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 8:50 AM Denis Maier <denismaier@mailbox.org> wrote:
>
>> This leads to problems with automatic citations, especially when you also use
>> "ibid." and such...
>>
>> Bla [cite:@doe].
>> Blabla (Gen 1).
>> Bla [cite:@doe].
>>
>> =>
>> Bla (Doe 2020).
>> Blabla (Gen 1).
>> Bla (ibid.).
>>
>>
>> With biblatex you can use \mancite to reset the citation trackers.
> Can one workaround this now?
Nothing official I'm afraid. With pandoc there's this simple lua filter: 
https://github.com/denismaier/pandoc-lua-mancite
> Or if not, by adding a "nobib" style per above at some point?
Yes, that could work.

Denis

Re: org-cite: how to include a cite with no key?

[Matt Price]

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On Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 3:32 AM Emmanuel Charpentier <
emm.charpentier@free.fr> wrote:

> Le mardi 20 juillet 2021 à 02:55 -0400, Matt Price a écrit :
>
> Certainly citation of personal communications is common in the fields of
> history and philosophy of science, where it represents an effort to
> responsibly represent the source of ideas owed to other persons.
>
>
> I don't dispute that.
>
>   It's not really a question of whether you personally would do it; it's a
> question of whether org will support a practice that exists in some
> real-world contexts.
>
>
> What I dispute is that such "non-citations" are dangling pointers, better
> replaced by incises or footnotes ... or proper citations.
>

just wanted to say sorry if I was gouchy there.  Shouldn't write emails so
late at night!

>
> --
> Emmanuel Charpentier
>
>

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