Zotero Test Results vs. Style Guide

This page summarizes the results of a test of the wheaton-phd-bith.csl style against the forthcoming style guide. It includes summary tips for handling certain situations. For the complete results, see ZoteroTest.pdf. Section numbers refer to the relevant section in the style guide.

General Tips and Challenges

1. When citations of two works by the same author appear consecutively, you have to use idem for the author in the second case. The current solution to this is to use “Suppress Author” and add “idem” followed by a comma just before the citation for the second reference. There should be a way to solve this in the style file, but I haven't looked into it yet.
2. Individual volume titles for multivolume works are not currently supported (see discussion at this link). As a temporary solution I want to explore using the “Extra” field for volume titles.
3. If a multivolume work still has volumes to be published and thus should read, "2 vols. to date," for example, you have to manually edit the citation and bibliographic entry.
4. Multivolume works also would be easier to work with if Zotero supported hierarchical items (so the series has individual volumes as subordinate items). There is talk of doing this. See this link for more information.
5. Date ranges are not yet supported but will be in version 2.1 of Zotero (follow this link for more information).
6. For multiple publishers, put the first publisher information (both place and publisher name) in the place field along with the place for the second publisher. Then put the second publisher in the publisher field.
7. In some cases the editor should also be listed as a translator; this should be fixed in Zotero later in the year; in the meantime, add the name twice, once as editor and once as translator and in the future this should work (follow this link for more information).

4.1. Books

Books are fairly well-supported right now. The challenges arise mainly with multivolume works, especially those that have individual volume titles. I am currently looking into a solution for this.

4.2. Journal Articles

Journal articles are extremely well-supported. However, book reviews (see 4.6 below), which are technically journal articles, present a challenge. Stay tuned.

4.3. Component Part of Book or Volume

Component parts (i.e., Book Section) are well-supported (provided that they do not involve an individually titled volume!). The one exception is the situation in 4.3.4. Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Note Written by Someone Other Than the Author. Perhaps the best solution is to use the “Book Section” item type and then manually edit the citation. Follow this link for a discussion of the issue.

4.4. Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and Lexicons

The big challenge here is what to do with lexicon citations that require a basic first citation, such as "BDB 342." The solution I am exploring is to use the "Dictionary Entry" item type for these types of citations and "Encyclopedia Article" for all others where the initial citation needs to be more complete.

4.5. Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

No problems here.

4.6. Book Review

There is currently no field for a reviewed title, though there is for a reviewed author. The solution I am exploring is using the “Extra” field in the “Journal Article” item type for the reviewed title.

4.7. Paper Presented at Professional Society

No problems here provided that you update your style from the Zotero repository to the one dated July 16, 2010 or later.

4.8. Class Lecture

No problems here.

4.9. Ancient–Pre-Modern Works

There are so many issues here that I am not going to list them until the volume title issue is resolved.

4.10. Internet Documentation

The main challenge here is that if you disable URLs for all but web page and blog item types in Zotero, you can't cite an internet source that is also a book, journal article, etc. I suggest avoiding internet sources for published works. If you can give a page number and list the print publishing information (such as you can for books scanned and placed on Google Books), do this. If it is a web page, it may be easier. The examples in the style guide are focused more on printed works that are accessed online.

4.11. Published Electronic Sources

Citing electronic sources of printed books, such as those in Libronix, should be no problem. However, CD-ROM sources may require additional work. Stay tuned, and let me know if there are any kinds of sources you need to cite of this variety.