Code4Lib Style Guide

Article titles are in Title Case -- all major words capitalized. The title is followed by an abstract, which will be pulled from the excerpt section lower on the post page, and byline of the form "by Author" or "by Author 1, Author 2, and Author 3".

Use H2 for main section headings, H3 for sub-sections, H4 if you need a lower level. H2 are in "Title Case" -- all words capitalized, short words (the, a, in, up, over, about) should not be. H3 and H4 are in "Sentence case" -- only the first word is capitalized.

Figures and tables are centered, placed inside a P or DIV with class of "caption". For example:

<p class = "caption">
<img src = "....">
<strong>Caption for Figure</strong>
<p>

<div class = "caption">
<table>
<tr>...</tr>
</table>
</div>

Captions for figures appear beneath the figure, centered, with "Figure X:" in bold, the descriptive text in sentence case, plain text.

Captions for tables and code appear above the table, centered, with "Table X:" in bold, the descriptive text in sentence case, plain text.

Code samples entered as preformatted text, as in the following example, are automagically color highlighted in Wordpress by the SyntaxHighlighter plugin:

<pre>
[sourcecode language='php']
RAW HTML/PHP/XML/Etc. code goes here; change language (in above line) as needed
[/sourcecode]
</pre>

Supported formats include cpp, c, c++, c#, c-sharp, csharp, css, delphi, java, js, jscript, javascript, pascal, php, py, python, rb, ruby, rails, ror, sql, vb, vb.net, xml, html, xhtml, and xslt. Pretty much everything except perl.

Footnotes & Footnote References

A Notes section (if needed) immediately follows the last of the article's narrative text. Notes are indicated in the text either by note number in square brackets [1] or by author and year [Smith, 2007]. Where notes refer to articles, books, etc., that are not available by direct link, insert a COINS element after the note.

Recommended Reference Style Information:

Tim McGeary proposes that the Editorial Committee chose a recommended style for all authors. Authors that do not choose recommended style need to follow another documented style and communicate that to their assigned editor. Using a documented style will provide a clear editorial guidelines for consistency, and ensure proper citations and references of literature and resources.

APA Style Example (Purdue)

MLA Style Example (Cornell)

CSE Style Example (Ohio State)

jrochkind's proposal: Citations should be clear and unambiguous, and reasonably consistent within an article. Authors are welcome but not required to use a formal style. Editors will ensure readability, clarity, and reasonable consistency of citations, but will not check citations for compliance with stylebooks.

Voting on Recommended Style:

About the Author

A sentence or two of brief biography, provided by the author(s), appears listed after the Notes.

Appendices

If there are appendices, they appear after the author biography.