iter 8: prompt rule 29 for CMOS 8.159 headline-case prepositions

Real-draft testing on the HML bibliography surfaced inconsistent
preposition capitalization in headline-style titles: the formatter
was sometimes lowercasing "among", "beyond", "within", "into", etc.
and sometimes capitalizing them, violating CMOS 8.159. The behavior
was nondeterministic across similar entries — smoking-gun evidence
of GPT-5 judgment drift on a rule the existing prompt only
implicitly covered via rule 6's "headline-style capitalization".

Rule 29 makes the carve-out explicit and instructs the model to
apply CMOS 8.159 independently of the source's casing, with:

- a substantial but illustrative preposition list including "as"
  (which CMOS 8.159 calls out as always lowercased)
- an explicit scope restriction to PREPOSITIONS, with subordinating
  conjunctions (If, That, Because, Although, Unless, etc.)
  capitalized
- a CMOS 8.161 carve-out for hyphenated compounds: the first
  element is always capitalized (so "In-School" stays, not
  "in-School")
- a first/last-word exception covering "last word of the main
  title immediately before a subtitle colon", which the model
  was treating as mid-title

Verified on the 134-entry HML draft: ~17 entries now produce more
CMOS-correct forms, and two consecutive re-runs show no new rule-
29-related regressions. Observed GPT-5 drift on orthogonal axes
(multi-author inversion, inner-quote style, periodical
italicization) washed out across re-runs, consistent with the
~5% single-run variance documented in project memory.

Rule count: 28 -> 29. No linter version bump required.
This commit is contained in:
Mark Eaton
2026-04-11 15:29:43 -04:00
parent 8b14dbc9ca
commit 0238f5e5d7
+73
View File
@@ -235,6 +235,79 @@ Rules you must follow (CMOS 18th edition specifically):
capitalization. When in doubt about whether a lowercased form is
intentional, err on the side of preserving the source's form.
29. LOWERCASE PREPOSITIONS IN TITLES — CMOS 8.159. CMOS headline-style
capitalization lowercases ALL prepositions regardless of length,
UNLESS the preposition is the first word or last word of the title
or subtitle, or is used adverbially or adjectivally. This is a
distinctive CMOS rule and differs from AP style and many other
house styles, which capitalize prepositions of 5+ letters. Rule 6
("headline-style capitalization") does NOT override this — this
rule is the carve-out.
Common prepositions that MUST be lowercased mid-title (illustrative,
not exhaustive):
about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, as, at,
before, behind, below, between, beyond, by, during, for, from, in,
inside, into, of, on, onto, out, over, through, throughout, to,
toward, under, until, up, upon, with, within, without.
The word "as" is specifically listed in CMOS 8.159 as always
lowercased in titles, whether functioning as a preposition or a
conjunction ("Information Literacy as Sociocultural Practice", NOT
"Literacy As Sociocultural").
The infinitive marker "to" is also lowercased ("How to Read a Book",
not "How To Read a Book").
SCOPE — PREPOSITIONS ONLY. This rule covers prepositions. Do NOT
apply it to SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS such as "If", "That",
"Because", "Although", "Though", "Whether", "Unless" — these are
CAPITALIZED in headline-style titles. CMOS 8.159 lowercases only
COORDINATING conjunctions (and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet), not
subordinating conjunctions. Do not over-apply rule 29 and lowercase
words that are not prepositions.
HYPHENATED COMPOUNDS — CMOS 8.161. In a hyphenated compound within
a title, the FIRST element is ALWAYS capitalized, regardless of
part of speech, even when that first element would be lowercased
as a standalone preposition under this rule. Do NOT apply rule 29's
lowercasing to the first element of a hyphenated compound.
Examples:
- "In-School Adolescents" (NOT "in-School")
- "On-Campus Housing" (NOT "on-Campus")
- "Post-Trump Academic Librarianship" (first element capitalized)
- "Anti-Racist Initiatives" (first element capitalized)
The second element of a hyphenated compound follows CMOS 8.161
separately: usually capitalized if it is a noun, verb, or adjective,
but lowercased if it is a short article, preposition, or
coordinating conjunction.
CRITICAL: apply this rule INDEPENDENTLY of the source's casing. The
source may have the preposition capitalized or lowercased; the
correct output is always lowercase (unless an exception applies).
Do not preserve a source's wrong capitalization, and do not flip a
source that already has it right.
Correct examples:
- "Information among Librarians" (not "Information Among Librarians")
- "Libraries Moving beyond Performative Politics" (not "Moving Beyond")
- "Experience within Animal Environments" (not "Experience Within")
- "An Exploration into Archival Materials" (not "Exploration Into")
- "Testing Intentions among Young Men" (not "Intentions Among")
- "Bathrooms Inclusive If the Stacks Exclude" (NOT "if" — subord. conj.)
- "A Study That Changed Everything" (NOT "that" — subord. conj.)
First-word / last-word exceptions (CAPITALIZE in these positions):
- "Beyond the Pale: A Study of X" ("Beyond" is the first word)
- "The Decade After" ("After" is the last word of the title)
- "A Report on Knowledge" ("on" is mid-title, stays lowercase)
- "In Academia and Beyond: Resisting Stigma" ("Beyond" is the last
word of the MAIN title immediately before a subtitle colon — it
is capitalized, not lowercased. The main title and the subtitle
are treated as SEPARATE units for the first/last-word exception.
Similarly, the first word of a subtitle is always capitalized
regardless of part of speech.)
Output ONLY the single reformatted entry. No preamble, no explanation.
"""