12 Inline elements

A traditional document consists of lines of text organized into blocks. A markdown document is likewise organized into inline elements that are put together into blocks.

Inline elements
- words and spaces,
- a few words in italics,
- a formula in the flow of the text, such as $x+y=c$.
Block elements
- paragraphs
- section headings
- images, figures, tables
- display formulas
- footnotes
- …

This chapter and the following ones deal with inline elements.

12.1 Punctuation

12.1.1 Punctuation and brackets

If only part of the sentence is in parentheses, put the final punctuation outside of the parenthesis:

I enjoy breakfast (sometimes).

If the entire sentence is in parenthesis, put the punctuation inside the parenthesis.

I enjoyed breakfast. (I always do.)

12.1.2 Punctuation and quotation marks

See Chapter 15.

12.1.3 Suspension points (three periods)

Three periods used for ellipsis, aka suspension points, are entered as three consecutive dots:

He will come back… sooner or later.

He will come back... sooner or later.

Do not space them (. . .).

Pandoc recognizes ... as suspension points, and uses the appropriate code for them in various output formats (e.g. a special unicode character in html, the \ldots{} command in LaTeX). This ensures they are typeset appropriately, with less space between them than normal dots.

If you need a plain sequence of three dots, with normal spacing rather than suspension dots spacing, backslash-escape the dots: \.\.\.:

Three plain dots: ... are not three suspension dots: …

Three plain dots: \.\.\. are not three suspension dots: ...

In proper typesetting, suspension points are less spaced than ordinary dots. Pandoc treats ... as suspension points and converts them to an appr

Pandoc recognizes the three consecutive dots and typesets them appropriately.

12.2 Emphasis and bold

Emphasized text is marked with surrounding asterisks or underscores. Bold is marked with double asterisks or underscores, emphasized bold with three:

This *word* and _that word_ are emphasized. 

This **word** and __that word__ are strongly emphasized.

***This sentence is extra strongly emphasized.***

Emphasis is printed in italics when surrounded with normal text. But when the surrounding text is itself in italics, this is the opposite.

Dialectica guidelines

Use simple emphasis only. Avoid strong emphasis (bold), which stands out too much on the page.

Simple emphasis (italics, one asterisk or underscore) is used: - for emphasis, - for labels of principles in statements:

Principle of Compositionality.

for mentioned words (e.g. in philosophy of language papers):

The verb know has two meanings
for simple symbols (when the paper doesn’t use formulas otherwise):

S knows that p.

Bold should be only used in limited cases:

some acronyms for a principle (PC), a system of logic (S4). Though we prefer small caps for e.g. name of principles (cf. statements).

12.3 Small caps

Small caps are coded by creating a Span with the .smallcaps class:

The [Circularity]{.smallcaps} claim...

Result:

The Circularity claim…

12.4 Subscripts and superscripts

Subscripts and superscripts in markdown text are coded as follows:

I want	I type
A sub₁ script and a sup¹ script (when attached to plain text words).	`A sub~1~ script and a sup^1^ script.`
Water is H₂O.	`Water is H~2~O.`
The n^o 1 activity	`The n^o^\ 1 activity`

Most often, though, superscripts and subscripts are part of LaTeX formulas. The code is then entered as follows.

I want	I type
With $p_1$ and $p^2$ the sub(/super)scripts are in formulas.	`With $p_1$ and $p^2$ the...`
With $p_{12}$ and $p^{**}$ the sub(/super)scripts are several characters long.	`With $p_{12}$ and $p^{xy}$ the...`

Note that in LaTeX, when your sub(/super)script is more than one character long, it needs to be enclosed in curly braces.

Do not use LaTeX’s \sb and \sp commands: MathJaX, our tool for displaying LaTeX formulas in HTML output, doesn’t recognize them.

12.5 Hyphens and dashes

The hyphen - is used between words:

An eye-popping headline.

En-dashes -- between numbers:

Pages 17–19.

Em-dashes --- for insertions:

He bailed out—and never came back. The mayor—a notorious narcissist—went to the press.

12.5.1 Compound words: when to hyphenate

The general rule is that compound adjectives are hyphenated but compount nouns aren-t:

An Egyptian-inspired drawing. A day-to-day schedule. A theory-laden observation.

A trailer park. A car shed. The equality view.

12.5.2 Insertion dashes

In standard English typesetting, insert dashes should not be surrounded by spaces.

GOOD	output
`The y---or their friends---weren't having it.`	They—or their friends—weren’t having it.

BAD	output
`They - -- or their friends ---weren't having it.`	They — or their friends — weren’t having it.

Note that end of lines in markdown are treated as spaces by Pandoc, so to avoid surrounding spaces the em dash should not be at the beginning or end of a line.

For a non-breaking hyphen, use the HTML code ‑:

... $\supset$‑analysis... prints out as ‘$\supset$‑analysis’ and the hyphen cannot be at a linebreak.

Dialectica guidelines

Em-dashes are not surrounded by spaces.

12.6 Acronyms

Cf “Abbreviations” chapter in the Chicago manual.

Acronyms are in caps, not bold. Exception: logic contexts, where axiom schemas, systems of logic, etc. may be labelled in bold.

Acronyms of more than three letters are in small caps.

12.7 Foreign words

Cf “Italics, Capitals, and Quotation Marks” of the Chicago manual. In summary:

Not italics if they are “familiar”, i.e. appear in the Webster’s dictionary. Italics otherwise.
Exception: if you have two nearby each other and one is unfamiliar, make both italics for consistency (e.g. mise en scène and mise en bouteille).

Some common cases:

Familiar. A priori, a posteriori, ceteris paribus, inter alia, ad hominem, modus ponens
Unfamiliar. Salva veritate, ex falso quodlibet, …

12.8 Line break

Exceptionally you may need a line break that does not start a new paragraph. This is encoded by finishing a line with a backlash. Thus the following:

This line ends here
and a new one starts.

is encoded as follows:

This line ends here \
and a new one starts.

Beware: make sure that there’s no space after the backslash. A backslash followed by a space merely means a mandatory space, so you’ll just get an extra space. To get a linebreak you need a backslash immediately followed the end of a line.

12.9 Prevent line breaks

Sometimes you need to prevent line breaks. If you use suppressed-author references, they are awkard at the beginning of lines as in:

… Smith’s great theory (1972). On the other …

The code for this would be:

... Smith's great theory [-@Smith1972]. On the other hand

To prevent this use non-breakable spaces, which can be introduced with a backclashed-escaped space \ or with the HTML code  , as follows:

... Smith's great theory\ [-@Smith1972]. On the other hand

... Smith's great theory&nbsp;[-@Smith1972]. On the other hand

Don’t use this to fine-tune how the long the lines are or the like; only when it makes sense in terms of the content: when it’s a matter of sticking say a citation year to what’s going with it, “i.e.” to what follows, and the like.