What is the Citation Style Language (CSL)?
The Citation Style Language (CSL) is an open standard for describing citation and bibliography formats, used by Zotero, Mendeley and many other tools.
The Citation Style Language (CSL) is an open, XML-based standard that describes how citations and bibliographies should be formatted. Thousands of styles — APA, Vancouver, Chicago, IEEE and many journal-specific formats — are defined in the open CSL styles repository, and tools such as Zotero and Mendeley use them.
Its value is consistency: one machine-readable definition of a style means every reference is formatted the same way, and you can switch styles instantly without reformatting anything by hand.
CSL and your CV
Formatting every reference on your CV through a single CSL style is what keeps your Word, PDF and LaTeX versions identical — the most common formatting failure on academic CVs is mixing styles or hand-formatting references inconsistently.
How SigmaCV uses CSL
SigmaCV formats every citation through CSL (via citeproc-js), so you can pick any supported style and your publication list reads identically across every export format.
Generate a formatted publication list
Frequently asked questions
Can I change citation styles easily with CSL?
Yes — that's the point. Choose any CSL style and every reference reformats consistently across all your CV's output formats.