( Conversation started here, with @murtaugh and @zeldman. )
Ah man, I got Opinions™ on this. I ususally go with something like:
<aside>
<h1>Optional Heading</h1>
<blockquote>
<p>It is the unofficial force—the Baker Street irregulars.</p>
</blockquote>
<address>Sherlock Holmes</address>
<cite>Sign of Four</cite>
</aside>
aside
provides sectioning context, address
flags the author/owner of the current sectioning context, cite
to cite a “work”, and blockquote
because it’s… a blockquote. I’d probably bolt the emdash onto the front of the address
with address:before { content: "—"; }
, where it’s not really essential. This is all predicated on the pullquote being considered non-essential to the surrounding content.
The figure
route could work too, but technically figure doesn’t provide sectioning context, so there’s two ways you could go with this.
<aside || section>
<figure>
<blockquote>
<p>It is the unofficial force—the Baker Street irregulars.</p>
</blockquote>
<figcaption>
<address>Sherlock Holmes</address>
<cite>Sign of Four</cite>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</aside || /section>
aside
if complementary but inessential to the surrounding content (like a pull-quote directly from the article), section
if part to the surrounding content (an external quote directly referenced by the text).
That’s an awful lot of stuff, though, so the other way of doing it with figure:
<figure>
<blockquote>
<p>It is the unofficial force—the Baker Street irregulars.</p>
</blockquote>
<figcaption>
<p>Sherlock Holmes</p>
<p>Sign of Four</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
The figcaption
flags the content as metadata for the rest of the figure, but you lose the specifics: “author” and “work” just become generic metadata.
I’m partial to the first one from an HTML5 outline standpoint.
I just re-read HTML5 Doctor's Aside Revisited and I think Mat's original idea of using
aside
(instead ofsection
) is better.I understand JZ's point about
footer
feeling like a hack, but checking the spec the latest definition offooter
seems to support using it here, something like this:Perhaps overkill again, but semantically sound.