Citation format frequently asked questions (FAQ)

The work in progress on a citation microformat includes citation-examples, citation-formats, and citation-brainstorming. This page is here to capture general questions about the work being done to create a citation microformat.

Questions

What is the difference between hReview and a Citation format?
- A citation is actually very different from a review, and even although a review could be said to contain a citation to the item being reviewed, in practice, the two are very different.
Why not just use hCard?
- A citation typically does reference (at least) a person or organization which should absolutely be marked up with an hCard, but there are additional semantics, like author or publisher, that are beyond a simple hCard, and perhaps name of the work (title) as well which need to be captured into a single microformat so that it can be identified as a logical chunk of citation information.
Citations usually contain two parts--a notice that the material is a quoted or paraphrased from a source, and a reference to the location of that source. It seems like we're attempting to do both simultaneously should we make more of an effort to differentiate the two?
- You seem to be mixing citation and quotation. The material that is quoted is typically called the quotation while the reference to the location of that source is the citation. That is the differentiation between the two.
Why not use the <cite> element?
- TBA