Notation Styles

There are a few competing standards on how to denote footnotes and bibliographic references in Markdown documents, with their specific advantages and disadvantages. By setting the notation parameter in CiteprocExtension, the extension is configurable to look for a specific notation, supporting three different styles.

Citekeys

Generally, all notations are centered around the use of citekeys - unique identifiers referencing a single bibliographic entry in your library and saved to the id attribute in CSLJSON. These identifiers can be random, but exporting algorithms usually create a more or less humanly readable amalgamation of the authors name and the entries title whenever possible. To declare a citekey in the markdown document, it is started with the character @

Prefixes & Suffixes

Each reference can contain a prefix before and a suffix after a citekey, i.e.

Some mention of gin.[ct. @fitzgeraldGreatGatsby2014, p. 15]

Prefixes and suffixes will be prepended or appended to the rendered reference.

Inline Notation

Set by notation=NotationStyle.INLINE

The reference is set directly inline in square brackets, i.e.

haven't had the advantages that you've had.[@fitzgeraldGreatGatsby2014]

Since this notation is rather unspecific, a potential reference containing no citekeys is ignored in this notation to avoid false positives.

Footnote Notation

Set by notation=NotationStyle.FOOTNOTE

References are denoted as explicit footnotes using an alphanumeric token:

haven't had the advantages that you've had.[^a] The owls are not what they seem.[^b]

[^a]: @fitzgeraldGreatGatsby2014
[^b]: This was told to me by a giant in a dream.

The footnotes are enumerated in the order the explicit footnotes are used. Since this notation is a lot more specific, it can also be used to just write footnotes without a citation or a citekey at all.

Inline-Footnote Notation

Set by notation=NotationStyle.INLINE_FOOTNOTE

Essentially, the same notation as INLINE, but needs a preceding ^. This gives the notation the necessary specifity to allow using it to denote footnotes not containing a citekey, i.e.

haven't had the advantages that you've had.[^@fitzgeraldGreatGatsby2014] The owls are not what they seem.[^This was told to me by a giant in a dream.]