Show Quote In Context^™

What is ShowQuoteInContext and what does it do?

ShowQuoteInContext is a free Safari extension for Mac and PC that displays and highlights quoted text on the page you link to.

Example link: Shakespeare's famous line "Now is the winter of our discontent" actually talks about how good things are:
Without ShowQuote:	With ShowQuote:

ShowQuote links let you see for yourself exactly what the original author said.

ShowQuote links let you back up what you say by showing your readers exactly where you got a quote.

Whether you want to view citations or create them, ShowQuoteInContext makes it easy!

Why citation links?

In books, journals, and scientific papers, citations lead to the relevant page, so you can find the specific source of a quote or reference. On the Web, one "page" may contain an entire book's worth of content.

The solution? Make links that take you right to the source material, just like in books!

Extension requirements

ShowQuoteInContext runs in Safari on Mac and Windows, and works on most web pages.

To show and highlight text,

1. the link must be in ShowQuote format (which the extension will create for you),
2. the viewer's browser must be running the ShowQuoteInContext extension, and
3. the page must contain the quoted text.

In a browser that isn't using the plugin, ShowQuote links act just like plain links, and show the viewer the top of the web page.

If content gets changed or removed after you link to it, your ShowQuote link acts like a plain link and shows the top of the web page.

Known limitations

ShowQuote highlights only the first instance of the quoted text on a page. If the same text appears again, ShowQuoteInContext won't find it.

ShowQuote searches only the URL you link to. If you link through a URL-shortening service, redirect, or iframe, ShowQuote won't work.

Some websites prevent ShowQuote from working, for instance by automatically correct non-standard URLs.

Links containing special characters may look strange. That's because ShowQuote does convert special characters such as long dashes long dashes (—) and curly quotes (“ ”) when it creates a URL… but it doesn't convert them in the link text people see. So your link will work, but might contain garbage characters such as . To fix this, use a URL encoder to manually convert your link text.

Safari only. (If you're a programmer interested in porting ShowQuote to Chrome, Firefox, or another browser, please contact me.)

How to install ShowQuoteInContext

Step 1: Download the Safari extension  

Step 2: Unzip the download by double-clicking it. Now double-click the resulting file.

Step 3: If prompted by Safari, confirm by clicking "Install" or "Yes".

Step 4: To test your install, click this link from the the novel Oliver Twist.

If the plugin did install, you will see the highlighted quote:	If the plugin didn't install, you will see the top of the Oliver Twist page:

How to create a citation link with the plugin

1. Using Safari, open the web page you want to quote.
2. Select the text you want to quote.
3. Control-click the text to see the drop-down menu.
4. Choose your link type. ShowQuote can either generate a URL (useful for emails and tweets), or complete HTML link code (good for web pages).
   
   To make only a URL, click Make ShowQuote URL from selection:
   
   
   
   To make an HTML link, click Make ShowQuote Citation Link from selection:
   
   
   
   In the example above, I selected the text Senior Software Engineer, so the link will look like this:
   
   "Senior Software Engineer"
   
5. Select Safari's Edit > Copy command or type Command-C to copy your ShowQuote link to the clipboard:
   
   
6. Use Safari's Edit > Paste command or type Command-V to paste the link into your document, then save it.
   
   WordPress users, make sure before you paste your URL that the WordPress editor shows the Text tab, not the Visual tab.
   
   If your document is a web page, load or reload it in Safari, and you should see the citation link you just created.
7. Test your citation link by clicking it. Test a URL by pasting it into your browser, then hitting Return. You should see the page with your text selected. (If not, see Troubleshooting.)

How to create a citation link manually

Inside any HTML editor or text editor, create your link using these formats:

Citation link only:

http://www.yourdomain.com#%23Your%20quote%20text%20here

Citation link with quote as the link text:

"<a href="http://www.yourdomain.com/#%23Your
%20quote%20text%20here">Your quote text here</a>"

Use a URL encoder to convert your quote text and punctuation to URL format.

Troubleshooting

• If clicking the link selects the wrong text, make sure you are quoting either the first or the only instance of that text on the web page. ShowQuote searches for and highlights only the first instance of the text you select. If you want to highlight a later instance of a quote, you will need to include text around it that makes it unique.
• If no text gets selected,

1. Use Search to make sure the page contains the exact quote. (If it doesn't, ShowQuote won't find it.)
2. Make sure you linked directly to the page containing the quote. ShowQuote won't work if you link through a URL shortener such as TinyURL or Bit.ly, or if you use a redirect or link to an iframe.
3. Make sure the website supports ShowQuote. A site that rewrites non-standard URLs or uses redirects or iframes will prevent ShowQuote from working.

• If your link works but the link text contains garbage characters, use a URL encoder to convert link text to HTML.
• If garbage characters appear where your WordPress link should be you probably pasted HTML code into the editor's Visual tab. Erase that code, recopy the link from ShowQuoteInContext, and paste the code into the editor's Text tab. Now save the page and reload it.

Are citation links something new?

Actually, they predate the World Wide Web!

Long before the Web, scholars used footnotes and citations to direct readers to the source of quotes and other materials. By citing page numbers in a book or article, authors could direct readers to the exact source of a quote or idea:

Author, Jane Q. Citation Links Through the Ages. HyperLink Publications, 1991: 69-70.

Once computers got invented, people began to imagine hypertext systems that would not just cite a source, but actually show you the source material.

In the late 1980s, a program called Guide implemented hypertext links that showed the source text and highlighted it. Instead of wondering whether someone quoted something accurately, or if they interpreted correctly, you could now see for yourself. I encountered Guide when it got ported to the Macintosh around 1988.

Unfortunately, when the World Wide Web got built, that functionality got left out.

I invented ShowQuoteInContext to put the real power of hyperlinks back in everyone's hands.

ShowQuoteInContext is the next re-invention and reincarnation of the footnote.

My hope is to change the way people see web pages. To create a new mindset.

Now instead of landing on a web "page" with a whole book's worth of content and having to search for a quote, readers jump right to the relevant text -- automatically. You can easily see for yourself exactly what the quoted author said, in context.

Instead of linking to a page, authors can link to the exact content within a web page that you want readers to see. Simply select the text you want to highlight, generate a ShowQuote link with two clicks, and paste that link wherever you want it.

If you see it, you can easily quote it with a citation link.

Whether you're citing a source or a quote, strengthening your argument, or proving that someone else misquoted or misinterpreted a quote, ShowQuoteInContext gives you literally billions more places on the web where you can link.

Additionally, ShowQuote citation links have great potential for machine learning, training adaptive systems, and artificial intelligence. Without citation links, machine learning systems using the Web can't tell you how they learned something. With ShowQuote, expert systems can cite where and when they got data and information, learned a rule, or found a quote.

Citation how-to

There are several popular formats for citations:

• MLA (Modern Language Association) style is frequently used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. MLA web citation guides:
• "Works Cited: Electronic Sources" on Purdue Online Writing Lab
• "How to cite a website" on bibme.org
• APA style is a format for academic documents such as journal articles and books. It is codified in the style guide of the American Psychological Association. APA web citation guide:
• "Tips for citing sources found on the web."
• Style guides that cover MLA and APA styles, and more:
• "Citing Electronic Information"
• "Citing Web Sites"
• "How Do I Correctly Cite Internet Sources?"
• "Citing Sources"

Spread citation links to the rest of the Web

Like citation links? Help spread the word, get more people using them, and make these links available to everyone!

1. Use citation links yourself.
2. Like and tweet this page on social media.
3. Join the Web standards Specifiction|Discourse where new HTML standards get discussed, the W3C Web Platform Incubator Community Group, and the W3C HTML Working Group mailing list, and ask for citation links to be included in the next HTML standard.
4. Post a ShowQuote demo video.
5. If you are a programmer interested in porting ShowQuote to Chrome, Firefox, or another browser, please contact me.

Other sites by Jean Tantra, creator of ShowQuoteInContext:

www.metatheory.com    - my Senior iOS/OSX Developer resume
www.symsavers.com       - my symmetric art
www.go-stones.com        - a hobby