Manuscript Editor

I think I have seen an open issue on this in the forum.
Is there any plan to add an editor in a manuscript item?
  • can you provide a sample where that would be needed in a citation?
  • edited February 16, 2010
    I think a valid one would be for WTO non-papers. They have no author and the manuscript type doesn't allow for an institution (only author). These documents don't have any author, as they are discussion documents, not-published, but widely referenced. They don't even exist in their document repository, though they have official document numbers (eg: "JOB(07)/54").

    I'm citing them as manuscripts, but I struggle with how to reference the institution.

    See this one: http://www.mfat.govt.nz/downloads/NZ-WTO/wto-doha-ministerialdeclaration27apr07.pdf
  • Why not categorise it as a 'document'? Wouldn't that solve your problems?

    The institution could be entered as the author or alternatively the institution could be entered as the publisher then the publisher could be used to substitute for the author in citations and bibliographies if no author is listed.
  • One could categorise it as a document, but AFAIK, document is reserved for published works, as opposed to a manuscript. These documents are definitely not publised (as they don't exist in the WTO documents repository), but are widely referenced and have a official document number.
  • document is reserved for published works
    Reserved by whom? Personally I think that a manuscript is a document that is prepared with the intention of publishing it (even if this may not have been achieved due to death etc.) and is therefore at a transitional stage. I think that a document may have been published but it is not essential.

    I'm not familiar with the type of document you linked to above, but it does say 'continued work' suggesting that this is a draft that may eventually be published. But saying that, isn't there a fine line between 'publishing' and making available on an official website. Could you not just say it was a published draft?

    Ultimately, I think that it is convenient to categorise it as a document then I would just go ahead and do so.
  • I don't really know by whom, but as I matter of good practice, I try to follow the categories as they are commonly understood since by bibliografies are shared and are used in our official documents. We need the correct formatting for published vs. unpublished works, for example. So I need to specify a document that isn't published.

    In the example that I cited, these are called "non-papers". That is to say, they are circulated in the discussion group, for negotiating purposes. The one I cited above is the position of the US and EU on the topic, to continue the negotiations of the group. You will notice that the link is not from the WTO. You can't find the document there, only many references to the JOB(07)/54 number. Most published works on this topic refer to these "non-papers", but they are not published anywhere except when some organization or government puts it up in a website (so you find it using google).

    But you can't write on the topic without referring to them. So I opt to use the unpublished document type, which is "manuscript" AFAIK. The bibliography needs to reflect that this is not published.

    Now that I think of it, I might use the "presentation" type, as these are also for non-published works.
  • I think Brazuca's approach is correct. Also, since document is a generic fallback category for csl (you can't actually do <if type="document"> ) there's another reason not to use it.

    I don't quite get why manuscript doesn't do it, though? I often treat WTO, World Bank, Cepal etc. as authors. Also, you can use "type" to clarify that it is a non-paper (type in csl is "genre")
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