Style Error: MLA
This is my first posting, so apologies if I've missed something or made an error. Please feel free to correct me.
The Zotero MLA parenthetical citation in MS Word uses an "&" rather than an "and" between multiple authors. But sites like http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/mla specifically say to use "and" rather than "&".
Is this an error? Maybe I'm just missing something? (I did try to search the discussion for this.) Again apologies for any errors on my part.
The Zotero MLA parenthetical citation in MS Word uses an "&" rather than an "and" between multiple authors. But sites like http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/mla specifically say to use "and" rather than "&".
Is this an error? Maybe I'm just missing something? (I did try to search the discussion for this.) Again apologies for any errors on my part.
I'll try to fix this asap, but if someone else gets to this before that'd be great.
Also, what should I put for the <link ... info? Right now I have a null http address. Should there be some ID number?
I've posted them both at pastie:
English: http://pastebin.com/ikDBsKXU
Spanish: http://pastebin.com/Hg0vaRtQ
PS: any tips on improving it are welcome
<id>http://www.zotero.org/styles/null-EN</id>
<link href="http://www.zotero.org/styles/null-EN"/>
The value of the href attribute of the link element indicates where the style can be found online. The link element (carrying a correct URL) is required for automatic updating of styles (i.e. if a change is made to a style in the Zotero Style Repository, this change gets automatically pushed to all Zotero clients that have this style installed). For styles stored in the Zotero Style Repository, the URL should be:
"http://www.zotero.org/styles/" + file name (without the ".csl" extension)
E.g. the APA style is stored in the file apa.csl, and has the URL:
<link href="http://www.zotero.org/styles/apa"/>
The value of the id element should be something unique, so Zotero (or any other CSL application) knows which style is which. By using the same URL you used earlier for the link element, you don't run the risk of having two styles with the same ID.
We are also planning on deploying this institution-wide, so it would be nice to have it auto-update when I make a change.
I can post this to the repository, but first I want to make sure that you're approaching multiple locales correctly-- from looking at the styles for English and Spanish, it looks like most of the differences are just in term definitions. Could this be created as a single style with support for multiple locales? Also, should the Spanish version be defining Spanish terms for the English locale?
Thanks for looking at the code. I'll have the look at the delimiter change you made to see if it results in the correct output for all the cases. I know the whole thing is a mess.
The issue of locales is confusing to me. AFAIK, the locale is still set by the user's FF preference. We need to allow the user to select either language based on the publication he/she is writing, not on the FF installation. In other words, if I'm writing an article in English, how would I tell Zotero to format the biblio in the same language? How would I swtich?
I remember that there was also some issue with the processor having a bug so that the CSL couldn't specify the language in the code.
I wrote it this way at the time, but if there is a better way, I'm all for it.
I see that the Spanish version is modifying the EN locale. I actually need to modify everything so that even if you are working on a French FF and select the Spanish version, the output would be correct. How to do this?
<if>
statements.As for the locale issues, I don't know the details. Perhaps someone else with more experience can give some useful feedback.
"brazuca: if I'm writing an article in English, how would I tell Zotero to format the biblio in the same language? How would I swtich?"
That doens't answer the question, though. Whatever my default language in Firefox, I need to choose the biblio style according to the work I'm doing at the time. I may write an article in English today, and one in Spanish tomorrow. AFAIK, the only way to do this with only one CSL is to switch the default FF language when I want to switch biblio languages.
I opted for letting the user select a biblio language per publication by selecting one of 2 CSL styles.
<style default-locale="en-US"/>
Am I right to assume that this would force the CSL into english, regardless of what language the user's Firefox is set to?
"The delimiter change had to be made, since the delimiter attribute is not valid for <if> statements."
Are you sure? Removing it changes the output, and keeping it works well. Is this just a matter of good form?
PS: sorry for completely hijacking this thread.
$ rnv csl/csl-0.8.rnc UN_ECLAC_CEPAL_EN.csl
UN_ECLAC_CEPAL_EN.csl
UN_ECLAC_CEPAL_EN.csl:207:3: error: attribute ^delimiter not allowed
required:
after
allowed:
attribute ^type
attribute ^is-numeric
attribute ^is-date
attribute ^position
attribute ^disambiguate
attribute ^locator
element http://purl.org/net/xbiblio/csl^names
element http://purl.org/net/xbiblio/csl^date
element http://purl.org/net/xbiblio/csl^label
element http://purl.org/net/xbiblio/csl^text
element http://purl.org/net/xbiblio/csl^number
element http://purl.org/net/xbiblio/csl^choose
element http://purl.org/net/xbiblio/csl^group
error: some documents are invalid
On the issue of sentencecase, I was reading my output wrong, and it indeed only works as you corrected it.
Everything seems to validate well now, thanks!