HistoryTalk

Scholarship on the Web: Print Stylesheets

Historians are happiest with printed documents, so I've been honing my print stylesheet CSS in the process of revising the endnote/footnote mini-site. Part of the project has been to work out how print stylesheets behave. One of my major insights is that the <sup> elements are crucial for the correct printing of scholarly citation. Last summer, I developed a quick and dirty footnote system for blogs; Jeremy Boggs at ClioWeb improved and simplified the technique, rendering it much more elegant. And so matters rested until the print stylesheet work.

Any given browser will also interpret a print stylesheet in a slightly different fashion, and printer devices will give their own spin to (X)HTML elements. One of the elements that printers apparently understand is the <sup> element and act accordingly. Printers normally make the font slightly smaller and raise its baseline. This is not entirely what a reader needs. Reducing the font size is beneficial since it keeps the numbers from bumping into the line above and creating small, distracting spots in the text. Raising the baseline is not beneficial, however. It disturbs the line leading, undermining both readability and legibility. Happily, the baseline issues can be resolved by setting the line-height to 0 in the style sheet. But both the browser and printer will not reduce the size of the font unless the reference mark is enclosed in <sup> elements. So, to create a screen stylesheet for a footnote reference mark would look like this:

#maincontent sup a.note {
background-color: #FFE680;
font-weight: bold;
color: #333;
margin-right: .2em;
padding: .1em .2em .1em .2em;
font-size: smaller;
text-decoration: none;
border: none;
line-height: 0;
}

And a the print version of the same would resemble the following:

#maincontent sup a.note {
background-color: none;
font-weight: normal;
color: black;
margin-right: 0;
padding: 0;
text-decoration: none;
border: none;
line-height: 0;
}


Without the <sup> element, the printed reference marks will inherit the basic text size with unpleasant results; without the line height property set to 0, the line spacing will squeeze open and shut like an accordion.

Add the print stylesheet insight to the fact that I've managed to include a logo illustration in the print sheet using absolute positioning, and t's been a great day in the neighborhood.

Update: The same effect can be achieved by setting the vertical-height to super and then setting the line-height to zero (0). A designer retains more control over the design in this fashion but at the expense of semantic exactness. And forget the absolute positioning gambit. Opera can't handle it, so it is a certainty that IE 6 will break. Thierry Replacement Technique and a hi-res image seem to be the best route.

Scholarship, (X)HTML, and CSS: Introduction

When scholars think about the definition of a scholarly paper or article, they are likely to think in terms of an argument, first, how the argument will be structured, second and finally, representing the argument’s structure in the conventional formats of the discipline. In terms of structure, scholarly argument, depending on the discipline, may include all or some of the following: abstract, introduction, thesis, main argument, conclusions, data tables, data graphs, mathematical expressions, illustrations, references, bibliography. While other documents—a corporate annual report, for example—may involve many of these, none of them define the document. A scholarly document, in contrast, is defined by some regimen of citation in the form of footnotes, endnotes, parenthetical citations, or parenthetical references to an accompanying bibliography. Documenting the sources of a researcher’s ideas and recording the provenance of evidence are essential; without them, the paper or article fails the scholarship test.

Scholars begin learning the process and format of citation early on. Most hight school students cannot escape learning the rudiments in high school, again at college or university, and, perhaps, more elaborately in graduate school. For much of modern scholarship, the typewriter dictated the format of citation. Because of the machines constraints, scholars learned the tedious methods of inserting superscripted marks and judging the space for footnotes. The advent of the the personal computer obviated much of the tedium. A scholar could rearrange, add, subtract reference marks and their collateral text as well as move back and forth between endnotes and footnotes, and the word processing application would obliging renumber the reference marks and reformat the text. And so matters rested until the advent of the web and scholars’ concomitant desire to make their research available.

Almost immediately, researchers discovered that scholarship on the web was no easy task. Bibliographies were difficult to format; superscripted endnote or footnote reference marks were possible but unsightly. Improvements in (X)HTML and CSS ameliorated the situation but not by much. Citations of any kind remained intractable and bibliographies, tedious. Why is this so? What circumstances contribute to these difficulties? (X)HTML fails to implement the basic structural elements of scholarship. Although the language seemingly accommodates scholarship’s basics, elements, such as blockquote, q, cite, and superscripted references—the hallmarks of scholarship are utterly missing, partially implemented, or realized unevenly across browsers. (Part 1 of 3)

The Joys of a Liberal Education–#1

(Warning: knowledge of a romance language necessary.) On most days, my commute between home and university is between 25 and 30 minutes. This is not bad at all for a major metro area. In the past few years, however, the traffic heading west at the end of the business day has grown worse, and I have found myself caught in “rush hour traffic” more and more. What has become particularly annoying is the over population of Lexus SUVs on US 50. For those not familiar with a Lexus SUV, they are large, invariably black, and have personalized plates. They are, in comparison to other vehicles, very (extremely) broad. There is no way to see around them; they take up more than their fair share of lane space. I have come to hate them.

More than a few times there have been three Lexus in front of me at a signal light—three large Lexus backsides. (What could possibly be the plural of Lexus? Lexi as in first declension masculine? Or Lexus as in fourth declension neuter. I’m going with neuter.) The only thing worse was the day when I had three Lexus in front of me and a Hummer on either side. It was like being in a canyon. My view: three personalized plates and two Hummer chrome gas caps.

In these situations, the only thing to do is exercise the mind and parse the personalized license plates. I have noted GOTBUCKS, MCHDLRS, WINNR, and other proclamations of economic success. As if I didn’t know the drivers were in a Lexus, there have been MOMSLXS, POPSLXS, and MYLXS (various spellings) plates denoting Lexus ownership. And I have seen a Lexus owner whose exultation knew no bounds: the plate simply said MNE MNE.

But there was a special Lexus day about five months ago. I caught sight of the first Lexus in the right lane just after exiting the parkway onto US 50. By Stringfellow Road, there were three Lexus in front of me by several car lengths. It was inevitable that at some signal, I would face, yet again, a Lexus phalanx. Nothing to do but figure out the plates. The Lexus in the left and middle lanes had rather common, "it's-all-about-me" personalized plates, but the Lexus on the right was three cars ahead, and its plate defied interpretation. My first guess was BOSCALA. An Italian restaurant? A driver proud of his ethnic heritage? Two cars away. BSAN?? Something to do with opera? Bees and what? Byzantium? A yellow Hummer blocked my view. The commute was still young—plenty of time. Near Metrotech, the Lexus in front of me moved smartly into the right lane. A Lexus parade in the making? No, the right-lane Lexus do-si-doed into the center lane, and we all glided to a stop.

And there it was: BSAMCLO.

It took me a moment as I paged through the neural file cabinet, knitting sounds together and moving lips to try out the sounds of different letters. Bingo! From the Spanish besar and so on. My imagination went wild. I pictured him each evening leaving work and pausing just a moment for to smile briefly before he joined the commute or stopping for a satisfied minute before he backed out of the garage in the morning. Did he take a certain joy in sitting in traffic in front of a Hummer? The most wonderful thing was that he had managed to get the plate by the VDOT which has rules about such things. Yes, indeed, BSAMCLO was better than the red Mustang convertible with the QUIM plate.

I laughed all the way home. A liberal arts education is a wonderful thing.

She’s Back

Well, it's summer, and I'm back. A very busy two semesters with grading, graduate students, search committees, and general chaos managment. I do so admire those who can blog with regularity. The big news: the basement is in the process of becoming a library. All my books and research materials will finally be unpacked, filed, and organized. Yay! Perhaps the toy book will finally be finished.

Not entirely idle, I've outlined some posts during the year as well as planned two series. The Joys of a Liberal Education and Adventures in the Archives. We'll see how these plans work out. The best laid plans of mice etc comes to mind. I have a Teaching American History week in Kansas and an NEH Landmarks double week session in Wyoming in July and, if the stars align, some time in Montana and research, so the summer is tight already. Time to spiff up the blog.