Citing works by abbreviated title ("classic work")

kadiddle

A few years ago there was discussion about how to cite something -- a "classic work" --that usually appears simply as an abbreviation:

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/387091

For example, the Collected Papers of C.S. Peirce are usually cited as CP 1.234, without the author's name.

Has anything like this been implemented since then, such as an Extra field?

I realize I could create a dummy record with the title CP and nothing else, and then manually add the full entry to the Works Cited, but with over 4000 bib entries, the "CP" record would be a bear to locate. Otherwise, I can just add everything manually.

bwiernik

The CSL item type for this type of item is “classic”. You can tell Zotero to treat an item as this type by adding this to Extra:

Type: classic
citation-label: CP

Your citation style would need to be modified to use the classic type appropriately. What style are you using?

adamsmith

@bwiernik -- do you think citation-label is the right approach here? Any reason to not just go with "short-title" and test for classic work? I've always imagined citation labels more like the alphanumerical labels used in math or compsci

bwiernik

I suppose title-short is probably a better fit. I was thinking that citation-label might have less issue with style-specific data entry because an author in a field that uses classics might work with a style that uses other types of short titles rather than classic abbreviations, they are less likely to use alphanumeric label styles. But probably more styles just work out of the box with title-short

kadiddle

For the particular article I'm currently writing, I'm using an author-date style, but usually I use CMS short title. But I'd want the citation to look the same no matter what the base style is: "CP 1.234," with no author, comma, or year. Using the standard short title field doesn't produce that in CMS or (obviously) author-date. I tested adding the lines to Extra that @bwiernik suggested, but no luck. So it sounds like what I'm hoping for would require modifying the styles, which unfortunately is outside my competence. But thanks.