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