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I have stumbled upon a peculiar situation in one of my latest documents: even though all titles in the BibTeX file are surrounded by double curly braces (all the way from the beginning to the end, which is Mendeley's default behavior), the ieee bibliography style still manages to override that with sentence capitalization.

Here is one of the entries, exported from Mendeley:

@article{huang2011short,
author = {Huang, H K},
doi = {10.1016/j.ejrad.2010.05.007},
issn = {1872-7727},
journal = {European journal of radiology},
keywords = {20th Century,21st Century,Financing,Government,Government Agencies,Government Agencies: history,Government: history,History,Humans,Medical Informatics,Medical Informatics: history,Radiology Information Systems,Radiology Information Systems: history,United States},
month = may,
number = {2},
pages = {163--76},
pmid = {21440396},
title = {{Short history of PACS. Part I: USA.}},
url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0720048X1000207X},
volume = {78},
year = {2011}
}

And a minimal version of my document.

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{memoir}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{url}
\usepackage[backend=bibtex8,style=ieee]{biblatex}
\usepackage{textpos}
\usepackage{glossaries}
\usepackage{acronym}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage[protrusion=true,expansion=true]{microtype}

\bibliography{../bib/library.bib}

\begin{document}
  \mainmatter
  \include{./matter}
  \printbibliography
\end{document}

I am using a custom command in TeXstudio that cleans auxiliary files, builds "matter.tex" from other sources and then performs "Build & View" on the main document. The outcome is just as if there were single curly braces around the title:

Outcome of compilation

There happens to be a question with a similar symptom, but it was left unattended from both ends (and I am not using JabRef). All my other search efforts on this matter only show when to use additional pairs of curly braces where we wish to preserve all capitalization, which is supposed to already happen at this point. What should I do to fix this?

Community
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E_net4
  • 193

1 Answers1

14

The double braces don't provide the required protection. Use

title = {Short history of {PACS}. {Part} {I}: {USA}.},

enter image description here

I believe that Biber is removing a pair of braces around the entire field, assuming that it was added by some software that's trying to be too smart. Capitalization of titles should be left to the bibliographic style, not forced. If the external software such as Mendeley or Web of Science is not able to put braces where necessary for maintaining correct capitalization where needed, it's a problem of that software. Checking items for correctness should never be overlooked.

egreg
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    Indeed, that worked for me. But still, why is it that a full encapsulation of the title with double curly brackets would not have any effect? Some Mendeley-related issues suggest that capitalization should have been forced. – E_net4 Jul 14 '15 at 16:25
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    Also note that as egreg does here, only those words that should not be changed, should be protected. It us the journal that decides what type or general casing they use not the author or the author of the cited work. – daleif Jul 14 '15 at 16:34
  • @daleif I understand the concern completely, and I wouldn't keep my bib file as it is before submitting. It's just that I stumbled upon an unexpected behavior. – E_net4 Jul 14 '15 at 16:50
  • @E_net4 My impression is that it is a feature of biblatex because the same happens with Biber. – egreg Jul 14 '15 at 17:04
  • Right, all works as expected if I don't use biblatex. It seems to be canceling the effect out. – E_net4 Jul 14 '15 at 20:21
  • This issue ought to be reported to the maintainer(s) of the biblatex package. – Mico Jul 14 '15 at 23:42
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    Probably the software can't tell. I think you have to check auto-generated entries always. It seems popular to add extra curly brackets, though I think it is wrong. The software should refrain since adding them where needed is less work than removing them everywhere else. [This is an argument I've won at least once with one such instance of software. Unfortunately, they keep coming up with new variations rather than leaving well enough alone. So I keep bug-reporting the regressions.) – cfr Feb 20 '16 at 00:04
  • I think this has to do with \bbx@colon@search which is a biblatex-ieee macro. If one uses only biblatex's on-board features with \DeclareFieldFormat{sentencecase}{\bbx@colon@search\MakeSentenceCase{#1}} the case protection is as expected. I believe \bbx@colon@search gets rid of the extra group of braces. – moewe Feb 20 '16 at 09:21