Chicago Manual of Style, German Translation Issues

versa

Dear all, I am using the CMOS (note without bibliographie), German translation, FF 3.5.8, OOo 3.1.1, Ubuntu 9.10.

It works fine only there are some mistakes in the translation.

Edition
it says: 2nd Aufl.
should be: 2. Aufl
(same with other numbers)

Number of a journal
it says: no. 2
should be: Nr. 2

Would it be possible to fix it? It's kind of important to me.

Rintze

The problem with the ordinals (2nd vs. 2.) can't be solved without creating a separate style (note that CSL 1.0 will support localized ordinals). You could replace
<number variable="edition" form="ordinal"/> with
<number variable="edition" suffix="."/> but this would affect all locales.

The problem with the journal issue number can be solved by replacing
<text variable="issue" prefix=", no. "/> with
<group prefix=", ">
<text term="issue" form="short" suffix=". "/>
<text variable="issue"/>
</group> (the term is "Nr" for the German "de-DE" locale, and "no" for the English "en-US" locale). It might be better to use <number variable="issue"/> instead of <text variable="issue"/> as well.

erazlogo

The problem with the journal issue number can be solved by replacing
<text variable="issue" prefix=", no. "/>with
<group prefix=", ">
<text term="issue" form="short" suffix=". "/>
<text variable="issue"/>
</group> (the term is "Nr" for the German "de-DE" locale, and "no" for the English "en-US" locale). It might be better to use instead of as well.

This is now fixed and should be available shortly from the styles page. Thanks for pointing this error out and for the code.

The other problem will have to be fixed locally because it's not an error but rather a locale issue, as Rintze points out.

versa

Thanks for your quick answers and the fix. Will the fix be available with the a usual zotero-update or do have to install the style by hand?

The other issue: Do I get it right that by using a <suffix=". "/> it would print out whatever is written in the field with a "." at the end? Can I even leave it blank? This would be brilliant as it would allow entries like "[2. Aufl., Orig. 1905]", a feature which I miss deeply.

Rintze

Do I get it right that by using a <suffix=". "/> it would print out whatever is written in the field with a "." at the end? Can I even leave it blank?

Yes and yes (the suffix attribute is optional).

If you wish to modify the style yourself, check out:
http://www.zotero.org/support/csl_simple_edits

erazlogo

Will the fix be available with the a usual zotero-update or do have to install the style by hand?

You have to install it from the Additional Styles section.

versa

Thanks, the Nr. is now working.

But concerning the edition, it still displays only numbers.

It says:
Lev D. Trockij, Die permanente Revolution, 1928 Aufl. (Essen: Arbeiterpresse-Verl., 1993).

But the entry under edition is:
[Orig.: 1928]

I hope I have changed the style correctly following the simple edits. This is the recent version:

http://pastie.org/873472

What else needs to be changed, so that in the end it reads:

Lev D. Trockij, Die permanente Revolution, [Orig.: 1928] (Essen: Arbeiterpresse-Verl., 1993).

Thanks a lot, zotero is a wunderful tool!

Rintze

Change (starting at line 342)
<choose>
<if is-numeric="edition">
<group delimiter=" ">
<number variable="edition" suffix=" "/>
<text term="edition" form="short" suffix="."/>
</group>
</if>
<else>
<text variable="edition" suffix="."/>
</else>
</choose>
into
<text variable="edition" suffix=" "/>
to always output the exact content of the edition field (<number variable="edition"/> only shows the first number encountered in the edition field).

versa

Nice, thanks.
Once you know how to do it it seems kind of logical...

Now it only kees adding Aufl., like:

....Revolution, [Orig.: 1928] Aufl. (Essen...

How can I change that?

Rintze

Did you replace all 11 lines?

versa

No, just the single one.
Got it now, nice!

Thanks a lot!

versa

Some other issues:

1.
Book Authors are introduced in English and there is one "space" to much:
Max Weber, “Soziologische Grundbegriffe,” in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, by Max Weber (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1972), 20.

should be
Max Weber, “Soziologische Grundbegriffe,” in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, von Max Weber (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1972), 20.

2.
In my personalized style (still the one from above) I have to deal with many different date-formats. Could you please tell me how to tell zotero to simply export exactly the entries from "date" to openoffice, without automatic number recognition etc. Just as we did with the "edition" field above.

Thanks a lot!

versa

erazlogo

should be
Max Weber, “Soziologische Grundbegriffe,” in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, von Max Weber (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1972), 20.

Actually according to CMS it should be:
Max Weber, “Soziologische Grundbegriffe,” in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1972), 20.
Just don't enter Weber as "book author"--only once as "author"

(the book author label is a problem that needs to be fixed however--there is a "by" label in CSL but for some reason it doesn't show up in current Zotero version; perhaps this is coming soon)

2. I don't think this is possible--this is not really a CMS style issue but a global citation processing issue.

fbennett

The "by" term has been added to CSL 1.0, but is not available in 0.8.1. It should start localizing correctly when the new processor comes out.

versa

1. OK, sorry, I maybe took a weak example, this is a better one where you do need the "by", but in German (and I suppose with one "space" less):

Florian Coulmas, “Einleitung: Sprache und Kultur,” in Soziolinguistik. Zur Ethnographie der Kommunikation, by Dell Hymes (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979), 7-24.

2. If this is the case, it really, really is a problem. I am using a lot of tsarist Russian sources, most of them give the old Gregorian date, some only the modern, some mix it up. I definitely need to give the modern date, too and therefore I do need to enter two dates in one field. To me this seems impossible right now. I think a db for historical use needs much more flexibility than zotero has to offer right now. Do you have suggestions to better this situation?

ajlyon

Per 2, I understand your frustration. I try to keep the maximum amount of date data in the date field (meaning sometimes pre-1918 Julian, sometimes Hijra dates, sometimes even both). This does cause issues for automatic bibliography generation, but I've found that first of all, I don't usually need to cite the precise date, but just the year, in which case the Julian and Gregorian years coincide. Happily, Hijra dates are generally not cited.

Keep your data-- Zotero isn't just a citation manager. For me and for many people, it's a system for wide-ranging research organization. That means that some data that I want to keep won't fit nicely into the structure of common citation styles. So be it; it isn't as if CMS dictates how I should cite a newspaper dated in the Hijra calendar and Julian calendars (it happened commonly in the Russian Empire). I'll have to be carefully consistent regardless.

fbennett

Suggestions for improving date handling are certainly welcome. Some of my own research work touches on late Tokugawa and early Meiji Japan, with lunar calendar dates. When I start bringing materials from that period into Zotero, I'll have the same problems, and will probably do as ajlyon suggests -- put the necessary details into the date field, and fix up the formatting after the document is finalized.

Non-Gregorian dates are a tough case at both ends for CSL: there is such variety in the schemes out there that parsing the elements out of plain text (as is done with Gregorian dates) would be very complicated; and fixing the proper formatting in the CSL code for all of the possible combinations in the style would be more complicated still. An automated solution is probably not going to be viable. What might be done, though, is to introduce some sort of simple "supplementary data" markup scheme for the field, and set up the processor to handle it in a uniform way, so that the final stage of document cleanup can be done in an orderly way.

versa

1. The issue with the dates still is really frustrating. All I would like is a free field where I can simply put data in which will be cited where the date should be. Withour any auto-formating.

Furthermore still it gives the dates in an English style, like:

"September 11, 2002"

which should be
"11. September 2002"

Could at least the latter be fixed? If yes, how?

2. There is a grammatical conflict when citing a presentation.

See: Thomas Welskopp, “Sprache und Kommunikation in praxistheoretischen Geschichtsansätzen” (gehalten auf der Sommerkurs des Berliner Kollegs für Vergleichende Geschichte Europas: Nach dem 'linguistic turn': Sprache, Begriffe und Perspektivität als methodische Probleme komparativer Geschichtswissenschaft, Berlin, September 28, 2005), 17-20.

The words "gehalten auf der" are generated automatically but does only work for female words, like "conference". I suggest it only says "gehalten auf" which would be technical German but at least grammatically correct.

Can I fix that with my own hands in my version of CMS?

Thanks,
versa

adamsmith

The words "gehalten auf der" are generated automatically but does only work for female words, like "conference". I suggest it only says "gehalten auf" which would be technical German but at least grammatically correct.

Can I fix that with my own hands in my version of CMS?

yes.
Here are the general instructions
http://www.zotero.org/support/csl_simple_edits

In your case you'd only have to do a search for "gehalten auf der" and replace it with "gehalten auf"

versa

Thanks, but if I search for the string, nothing is found.

My version of CMOS looks like this:

http://pastie.org/1013194

adamsmith

sorry, my bad, it's the automatic translation, of course.
Instead, put this:
<terms>
<locale xml:lang="de">
<term name="presented at" >gehalten auf</term>
</locale>
</terms>
in your file right after the end of the <info> section (i.e. after the tag </info>

This will change the translation of "presented at" in German to "gehalten auf"

This should work, but it's a big hassle for me to test (bc. I'd have to switch languages in FF, restart etc.) so please let me know if it doesn't.

kbboeckmann

I have another issue with CMS German. When I have two authors, I get "and" instead of "und" as a connector:

Hufeisen, Britta and Gerhard Neuner. 1999. Angewandte Linguistik für den fremdsprachlichen Deutschunterricht. Eine Einführung. Fernstudienprojekt zur Fort- und Weiterbildung im Bereich Germanistik und Deutsch als Fremdsprache; Fernstudieneinheit 16. München: Langenscheidt.

Instead of replacing "and" with "und" I would actually prefer the symbol "&" as a connector.

How can I fix it?

When I try http://www.zotero.org/support/csl_simple_edits I get the message "This topic does not exist yet".

Gracile

General instructions are now here: http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

Instead of replacing "and" with "und" I would actually prefer the symbol "&" as a connector.

In your style, search for <name and="text" and replace it by <name and="symbol"


[http://citationstyles.org/downloads/specification.html#name ]