Re: [PATCH] oc-csl: New custom option `org-cite-csl-sentence-case-bibtex-titles'

[Ihor Radchenko]

András Simonyi <andras.simonyi@gmail.com> writes:

> since bibtex and biblatex requires title fields to be in title case
> ...

Are you sure? AFAIK, bibtex and biblatex (depending on the bibstyle)
does not care about capitalization and instead applies its own, unless
the title explicitly protects the capitalization/case with {Curly
BracketS}.

See https://texfaq.org/FAQ-capbibtex and
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/20335/proper-casing-in-citation-bibliography-titles-using-biblatex-biber

> ... but CSL assumes that they are in sentence-case, citeproc-el converts
> title fields in bib(la)tex bibliography databases into sentence-case
> before processing them except for entries with an explicit non-English
> langid value...

AFAIU, the general recommendation is to use sentence case in the bib
files. Both for Bib(La)Tex (because it converts into title case if
necessary by itself) and for CSL, according to
https://citationstyles.org/authors/

Of course, not every real-life bibliography follows such suggestion,
but, as stated in https://citationstyles.org/authors/, converting from
title case to sentence case is error-prone:

>> For this reason, we recommend that you store all titles in your
>> reference database in sentence case. Our repository CSL styles that
>> need sentence case will generally just print titles as is, whereas
>> styles that need title case will use an automatic title-case
>> conversion.

Looking at https://github.com/andras-simonyi/citeproc-el/issues/119 and
https://github.com/andras-simonyi/citeproc-el/issues/142, it appears to
me that citeproc.el does not stick to the above guideline from CSL
website - unless title case is requested by the bibliography converting
to sentence case should not be done by default. Also, such conversion
should only happen in titles, AFAIU; not in other fields.

> Subject: [PATCH] oc-csl: New custom option
> `org-cite-csl-sentence-case-bibtex-titles'

I see no problem with the new feature, but I'd consider flipping the
default to nil.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
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