Why does Zotero citation style editor says that "part-number" is not a valid value for a term name?

pureimagination

There is a label for part-number so I have to define a term. The term is working but why is there an error message? This term-name is also not available in csl visual editor.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u14793917/gjvz8zoqvwbq4b28y42v.png

adamsmith

That looks like a problem with the schema; I think we'll want an issue on that github repo. For some reason, several of the "-number" terms that have terms corresponding to the first part (so "supplement-number", "part-number", and "printing-number") are not listed in the schema.
https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/blob/master/schemas/styles/csl-terms.rnc#L165

@bwiernik -- was there any purpose to that or is it just an oversight?

pureimagination

I also noticed that the locator variable is not working if implemented in bibliography. There is no error message, it just don't display the locator variable. is there any reason for that?
<text variable="locator"/>

adamsmith

Locators are by definition citation specific. They make no sense in the bibliography.

pureimagination

I think it would add more versatility. e.g. I want to display figures and tables separately in the bibliography. therefore I need title-locator and figure/table. Or sometimes I need to refer to an appendix or supplement instead of a chapter.

adamsmith

Purely in terms of the data model, though, this doesn't make sense. Citations to bibliography is a many-to-one relationship and the specifications define the locator as "A cite-specific pinpointer" -- so an item in a bibliography can have any number of locators and there's no logical as to which one to cite.

I don't know why you would cite tables or figures separately in the bibliography -- I think it's bad practice (bibliographies should cite, I think, list bibliographic units) -- but to the extent you want to, treating an appendix or supplement as a book section (for books) or as a separate journal article (with "Appendix to" or "Supplement to" added to the title) in the data would be the right approach.

pureimagination

I mean there are a lot of locators in bibliography anyways, e.g. number, page, chapter. Also volume, issue, part, version are in bibliography and citation. And most of the other locators are integrated in citeprog-js. One can enter all locators in the fields number and page by adding their abbreviation. But this is prone to errors when changing the citation style. If a label is defined all locators will be shown twice.

If tables and figures are used in the same form as in the source, they're clearly no literature. If I just use data from these source types, it should be in the bibliography. But if I just copy them to my own work, it's rational to cite them separately. But even if not, one needs the locator variables in order to cite them correctly in terms of copyright. Because often books or websites are the source of an image/table, but the author and the creator of the image are not the same.

So one has to cite the creator, figure number and figure title before the remaining citation, e.g. in combination with the term "taken from". That's especially a problem if one cites an image within a chapter. Then one has to trick around. But why one has to trick around if these variables are already existing but just blocked?

And I assume there are no plans to integrate separate bibliographies within Zotero? Separate directories are required in a lot of subjects. So my advice to students right now is to not only use Zotero but also Mendeley, Bookend and Sciwheel. I think that's not very convenient and goes hand in hand with several other problems. So the alternative is to just use EndNote or Citavi (which of course goes hand in hand with several other problems).

adamsmith

Sorry, but we're talking past each other and you're not engaging with what a locator is. It's what legal scholars call a pinpoint used in a citation. It can by definition not be in the bibliography. Doing so would make a mess of the data model. You really do need to appreciate the difference between citation-level data and item-level data for this conversation to make any sense. Locators are citation-level data. Bibliographies are created using item-level information.

Now, if you think there should be additional variables included for items we can discuss. I'd want to see some examples from style guides or manuals that show such items in the bibliography. I've seen this for column ranges (e.g. for encyclopedia articles) but not for any of the other things you're mentioning.

adamsmith

There are a number of threads on multiple bibliographies -- which are kind of possible but not really -- better to follow up on that question there. I don't know what the plans on this are; it's generally intended to be supported in citeproc-js and I think Zotero should add support (we've had some conversations around this and I feel pretty strongly it should be a feature of reference managers, not the citation style language).

pureimagination

In many subjects there are no thoughts on pictures. E.g. in engineering nobody cares about the right citation of images because nobody has respect for art at all.They're just cited as books or whatever. I think it's similar in other subjects. But my roots are in media. I know for a fact that most media professors want a specific citation. E.g. I found this online: https://aub-uk.libguides.com/referencing/figures


Image from a Magazine/Journal

References should consist of the following elements:

Image Creator's Family Name, Initial(s).
(Year of creation).
Title or description of image
[medium of image].
In
Article Author's Family Name, Initial(s). (if different to image creator)
(Year of publication). (if different to image)
Title of article.
Title of journal.
Volume and Issue Number.
Page number(s) of image.


Currently the whole creators information (for the element within a contribution within the container) is missing in csl. This case shows why I think those locator informations shouldn't be citation exclusive, because the element is in fact the item which is referenced to and not the article. If there are technical issues implementing the locator-variable it's a pity.

As a quick solution I just wanted to insert the locator-variable in my csl style. The article informations would be ignored and replaced by the creator informations. In terms of formatting this wouldn't be 100 % correct because the title would be in quotes instead of italics. This could be solved by a condition considering the item type "figure" (which currently isn't available in Zotero but can be tricked via the extra field). But instead of a page-locator I needed the figure-locator.

I thought this would be easily possible since the locator abbreviations integrated in citeproc-js (which can be used when entering the locator via word plugin) are also available in the fields "page" and "chapter". The problem is that if one types "fig. 4" in the page-field, it will be displayed as "Fig. Fig. 4" if a label is defined in csl. I could solve this via a few conditions but then the style wouldn't be compatible if one changes to a different style. Entering "3 fig. 4" however would correctly result in "P. 3 Fig. 4".

Of course there are other solutions, e.g. typing the creator informations and "taken from" in the suffix field or cite pictures just like secondary citations (two references for one citation).

pureimagination

Just to add to your argument about the multiple bibliographies feature. This should be implemented in CSL and not just in a reference manager. And it has to be combined with a feature that allows to create different styles within one style depending on the item type. Just an example from engineering:

It's common to use a numeric citation style (mostly IEEE). But it's mandatory to cite standards and legals by their short form (e.g. "DIN 1045-1"instead of "[3]"). And they have to be alphabetically sorted in a separate directory. Therefore this directories shouldn't include a reference number.

This also isn't possible in EndNote but it's definitely possible in Citavi to define different bibliography styles depending on their item type. But I don't know if it's possible to mix numeric and other styles together. But apart from it just would be a game changer for zotero.

Another possibility would be to create abbreviation lists in Zotero since this is just not possible in MS Word. One could insert all abbreviations via Zotero and the abbreviation would automatically be displayed correctly depending on their first appearance in the text.

I know that this is not the purpose of reference managers but this functionality would be also useful for regular citations. E.g. there are standards and legals which should be or need to be explained by their long form. E.g. the directive EPBD has to be displayed with their long form "Energy Performance of buildings directive" if mentioned first.

aborel

Interesting discussion, very close to a question that's been on my mind for a while.

Thanks for explaining the data model, I have rarely used locators as I didn't really understand how they work. I still don't understand how to use them effectively with numeric reference styles such as Angewandte Chemie International Edition. I can edit the in-text citation, but the locator is not displayed in any way that I can see. As a result, citing specific information coming from large bibliographic units is problematic and I would normally create multiple Zotero items if I need to cite several pages of a given book, i.e. working against the data model :-) Can someone share a better practice for such a case?

damnation

It's not typical for numeric styles to have locators, but we certainly have a whole bunch of such styles.

adamsmith

IEEE and AMA have locators -- next to the number for in text citations -- explicitly in their style guides and the CSL styles have them..
You occasionally see example of pinpoints in numerical bibliographies in journals. They're the result of conceptual confusion (many people don't understand the distinction between endnotes and numeric bibliographies) and/or poor copyediting.

bwiernik

@adamsmith I am not sure but I think it is likely an oversight