The Citation Style Language (CSL) is an open
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
file format that describes schema for the formatting of
citation
A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...
s and
bibliographies
Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliograph ...
.
Reference management programs using CSL include
Zotero
Zotero () is a free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, such as PDF and ePUB files. Features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citatio ...
,
Mendeley
Mendeley is a reference management, reference manager software founded in 2007 by Doctor of Philosophy, PhD students Paul Foeckler, Victor Henning, Jan Reichelt and acquired by the Dutch academic publishing company Elsevier in 2013. It is used to ...
and
Papers. The
Pandoc
Pandoc is a free-software document converter, widely used as a writing tool (especially by scholars)- - - and as a basis for publishing workflows. It was created by John MacFarlane, a philosophy professor at the University of California, Berk ...
lightweight document conversion system also supports citations in CSL,
YAML
YAML ( ) is a human-readable data serialization language. It is commonly used for configuration files and in applications where data is being stored or transmitted. YAML targets many of the same communications applications as Extensible Marku ...
, and
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced or ) is an open standard file format and electronic data interchange, data interchange format that uses Human-readable medium and data, human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consi ...
formats and can render these using any of the CSL styles listed in the Zotero Style Repository.
[
]
History
CSL was created by Bruce D'Arcus for use with
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed) and Collabora Online, with Apache OpenOffice being considered mostly d ...
, and an
XSLT
XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) is a language originally designed for transforming XML documents into other XML documents, or other formats such as HTML for web pages, plain text, or XSL Formatting Objects. These formats c ...
-based "
CiteProc" CSL processor. CSL was further developed in collaboration with
Zotero
Zotero () is a free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, such as PDF and ePUB files. Features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citatio ...
developer Simon Kornblith. Since 2008, the core development team consists of D'Arcus, Frank Bennett, Rintze Zelle, Brenton Wiernik and Denis Maier.
The releases of CSL are 0.8 (March 21, 2009), 0.8.1 (February 1, 2010), 1.0 (March 22, 2010), 1.0.1 (September 3, 2012), and 1.0.2 (October 22, 2021). CSL 1.0 was a backward-incompatible release, but styles in the 0.8.1 format can be automatically updated to the CSL 1.0 format.
On its release in 2006,
Zotero
Zotero () is a free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, such as PDF and ePUB files. Features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citatio ...
became the first application to adopt CSL. In 2008
Mendeley
Mendeley is a reference management, reference manager software founded in 2007 by Doctor of Philosophy, PhD students Paul Foeckler, Victor Henning, Jan Reichelt and acquired by the Dutch academic publishing company Elsevier in 2013. It is used to ...
was released with CSL support, and in 2011,
Papers and
Qiqqa
Qiqqa (pronounced "Quicker") is a free and open-source software that allows researchers to work with thousands of PDFs. It combines PDF reference management tools, a citation manager, and a mind map brainstorming tool. It integrates with Micro ...
gained support for CSL-based citation formatting.
Software support
*
Zotero
Zotero () is a free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, such as PDF and ePUB files. Features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citatio ...
,
Mendeley
Mendeley is a reference management, reference manager software founded in 2007 by Doctor of Philosophy, PhD students Paul Foeckler, Victor Henning, Jan Reichelt and acquired by the Dutch academic publishing company Elsevier in 2013. It is used to ...
,
Papers, and
Qiqqa
Qiqqa (pronounced "Quicker") is a free and open-source software that allows researchers to work with thousands of PDFs. It combines PDF reference management tools, a citation manager, and a mind map brainstorming tool. It integrates with Micro ...
all support CSL 1.0 (
Zotero
Zotero () is a free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, such as PDF and ePUB files. Features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citatio ...
also supports CSL 0.8.1 styles, which are internally updated to CSL 1.0).
*
Zotero
Zotero () is a free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, such as PDF and ePUB files. Features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citatio ...
,
Mendeley
Mendeley is a reference management, reference manager software founded in 2007 by Doctor of Philosophy, PhD students Paul Foeckler, Victor Henning, Jan Reichelt and acquired by the Dutch academic publishing company Elsevier in 2013. It is used to ...
, and
Qiqqa
Qiqqa (pronounced "Quicker") is a free and open-source software that allows researchers to work with thousands of PDFs. It combines PDF reference management tools, a citation manager, and a mind map brainstorming tool. It integrates with Micro ...
rely on the ''citeproc-js'' JavaScript CSL processor.
*
Zotero
Zotero () is a free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, such as PDF and ePUB files. Features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citatio ...
,
Mendeley
Mendeley is a reference management, reference manager software founded in 2007 by Doctor of Philosophy, PhD students Paul Foeckler, Victor Henning, Jan Reichelt and acquired by the Dutch academic publishing company Elsevier in 2013. It is used to ...
, and
Qiqqa
Qiqqa (pronounced "Quicker") is a free and open-source software that allows researchers to work with thousands of PDFs. It combines PDF reference management tools, a citation manager, and a mind map brainstorming tool. It integrates with Micro ...
provide a built-in CSL editor to help create and modify CSL styles.
Styles
The CSL project maintains a CSL 1.0 style repository, which contains over 9000 styles (more than 1700 unique styles).
References
External links
Project home of the Citation Style Language*
Zotero's CSL documentationWYSIWYG CSL 1.0 style editor(in development, by
Mendeley
Mendeley is a reference management, reference manager software founded in 2007 by Doctor of Philosophy, PhD students Paul Foeckler, Victor Henning, Jan Reichelt and acquired by the Dutch academic publishing company Elsevier in 2013. It is used to ...
)
Metadata
Bibliography file formats
Library 2.0
Reference
{{library-stub