19  Statements and indented blocks

Requires: the statement.lua filter.

In articles some special blocks appear as indented. They fall into three types:

This section deals with statements, more precisely statements other than proofs and theorems. For the latter see Chapter 26.

Arguments that are set out of the main text can be typeset as statements. But when they have labelled premises, especially when we need to crossrefer to specific premises or the conclusion, we typeset them as custom-labelled lists. See Section 16.4.

The simplest statements are just a block of idented text. Optionally, some statements have a label (aka title). They may also have some extra encoded fields like acronym, info, ID for crossreferencing—these are explained below.

Statements are encoded as Divs. See Section 14.5 if you don’t yet know what Divs are.

19.1 Statements basics

A statement is encoded as a Div with the special class statement:

...main flow of text...

::: { .statement }

The sum of angles of a triangle equals two right angles.

:::

...subsequent flow of text...

As detailed in Section 14.5, there are a couple of equivalent variations for this code. Provided that the Div has no other attribute that the statement class, curly braces can be omitted:

::: statement 

The sum of angles of a triangle equals two right angles.

:::

The opening and closing ‘fences’ can also be made as wide as you want if that improves readability. That doesn’t affect the output:

::: {.statement} ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The sum of angles of a triangle equals two right angles.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


::: statement :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The sum of angles of a triangle equals two right angles.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

19.2 No statements in footnotes

Statements don’t work in footnotes—that’s a limitation of the LaTeX package we use for them, amsthm.

To get an indented block in footnote use a custom-labelled list with an empty label. See Section 16.3.

19.3 Statement titles

A statement can have a title (aka custom label). This is specified in Strong emphasis (**...** or __...__), at the beginning of the statement:

::: statement
**The Principal Principle**. One's credence in $p$ conditional
on the hypothesis that the chance of $p$ is $x$ should be $x$.
:::

This will be rendered as an indented block with its title in the template’s preferred formatting of statement titles, for instance:

The Principal Principle. One’s credence in \(p\) conditional on the hypothesis that the chance of \(p\) is \(x\) should be \(x\).

If you don’t specify an ID or acronym for the statement, its title is used to generate an ID automatically. The automatic ID is a lower case version, with all spaces and symbols replaced by _: the-principal-principle. If this ID already exists in your document (for instance, if it’s also the title of a section that Pandoc uses to automatically generate an ID for that section), the ID will be ...-1, or ...-2, as needed.

A statement can only have one ID so if the statement has an acronym or custom ID (see below) they’re replace this one.

19.4 Statement acronyms

If a statement has a title, you can also give it an acronym. It’s placed at the beginning of the title, within parentheses:

::: statement
**(PP) The Principal Principle**. One's credence in $p$ conditional
on the hypothesis that the chance of $p$ is $x$ should be $x$.
:::

The result will depend on where the template prefers to place the acronym. For instance:

The Principal Principle (PP). One’s credence in \(p\) conditional on the hypothesis that the chance of \(p\) is \(x\) should be \(x\).

Beware that the acronym must be within the title, i.e. within the strong emphasis delimiters:

  • GOOD: __(PP) The Principal Principle__
  • BAD: (PP) __The Principal Principle__

If you don’t specify an ID for a statement with an acronym, the acronym will be used to automatically generated an ID, e.g. PP. (When the ID PP already exists in your document, it’ll be PP-1 instead, or PP-2, etc.).

19.5 Statement info

A statement can have some info, e.g. a source citation or some text within parentheses This is put at the end of, or right after, the statement’s title.

::: statement
**(Acro) Title of the satement (some info).** Content of the statement
:::

::: statement
**(Acro) Title of the satement @Doe2020.** Content of the statement
:::

::: statement
**(Acro) Title of the satement.** (some info) Content of the statement
:::

::: statement
**(Acro) Title of the satement.**  @Doe2020 Content of the statement
:::

If there’s no title, the info is just at the beginning.

::: statement
(some info) Content of the statement
:::

::: statement
@Doe2020 [@Doe2021; @Doe2022] Content of the statement
:::

The output depends on the template. (The template may even define different styles for different kinds of statement.) It may look like this, for instance:

The Principal Principle (PP). (Lewis (1990)) One’s credence in \(p\) conditional on the hypothesis that the chance of \(p\) is \(x\) should be \(x\).

19.6 Statement custom IDs

You can cross-reference statements that have an ID If the statement has an acronym or title, you can use the ID automatically generated based on those. Otherwise you can give it an ID by putting a #myidentifier entry in its attributes:

::: {.statement #my-favourite-statement}
__Title of the statement__. Content of the statement
:::

It’s good practice to start your ID by sta: to make clear that it’s a statement ID:

::: {.statement #sta:psr}
__(PSR) Principle of Sufficient Reason__. Content of the statement
:::

Beware of adding curly brackets and a dot before statement:

GOOD
::: {.statement #my-favourite-statement}
...
:::

BAD
::: statement #my-fav-statement
...
:::

::: {statement #my-fav-statement}
...
:::

A statement can only have one ID so if you provide one you can’t refer to it by its acronym or title.

19.7 Statement within a numbered example list

See custom-labelled lists within numbered example lists.

19.8 Crossreferencing statements

Statements with ID (either automatically generated from their title or acronym, if any, or custom IDs that you provide) can be crossreferenced. You can use the citation syntax or the link syntax.

19.8.1 Citation syntax

  • @mystatement will produce a link with the statement acronym if it has one: PP, otherwise a link its title if has one: The Principal Principle or nothing.
  • [@mystatement] will produce the same as above, surrounding by bracket. Beware that if your statement has no title or acronym (and it’s not a numbered statement e.g. theorem) you’ll only get two parentheses: ().
  • Citations of multiple statements produce a ;-separated list. [@sta:psr, @sta:pp] can produce ‘(Principle of Sufficient Reason; Principal Principle)’ for instance.
  • citation prefixes and suffixes are allowed: [See @sta:pp above].