Style Error: [McGill Guide to Legal Citation] supra error for cases

mikanovd

Hello! Just came across something I think might be a bug? The standard rule in McGill guide for referring to prior citations is ibid for the immediate proceeding footnote, and supra # to the original footnote citation. If the second footnote refers to the footnote right above it, it should just say Ibid.

The system seems seems to be set up like this, EXCEPT for "case" item types. I have included a screenshot below showing the issue:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u4655716/5i5td3trhgsm8i15itsv.png

In this example, 95 is a citation for a case. 96 refers back to the same case - it SHOULD say Ibid, because its referring to the reference immediately proceeding it.
In contrast, 97 is citing a book, and 98 is doing the right thing, with an Ibid.

Is this an issue with something I did, or potentially a bug in the style?

(side note: I really love the McGill Guide but know nothing about coding... If whoever is working on updating to the 10th edition wants any help regarding the style rules, since its not open access- I'm happy to help!)

damnation

A PR to update McGill to Version 10 was made a while ago. Can you test that out?
https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/raw/7ed8624a008823318ed3f64f5db5a8a0c69ea242/mcgill-en.csl

PR: https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/pull/7197

The current style outputs the "supra" style for subsequent notes. I also tested this out just now in an empty document and ibid for cases should work just fine. Can you
1: Switch to APA and back to McGill? (this will force a rerender of all citations)
2: Test this in a fresh document?

mikanovd

@damnation I fear I am not sure how to test/what testing out means. My BF is a programmer so I'm going to ask him to walk me through that - but he's not really a Zotero guy, is there any instructions on the Zotero page you can direct us to?

Re the Supra concern: I tried switching to APA & back, that didn't fix the issue I'm having - but in a fresh document there is no problem, the Ibid appears as expected after cases.

What do I have to do to fix this in my working document?

damnation

Have Zotero open and click on that link. Zotero should pick that up.
If not, right click on it, save as..., and then install it in Zotero via a double click or the menu.

So I had you test that because it means that somehow you have something in between those citations and it doesn't recognise it as ibid.
You can try to remove the citations and reinsert them again.
You can also turn on field codes and see if you maybe find a remnant of another citation: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/word_field_codes

mikanovd

removing the citations & adding back fixed them, thanks!
I tested out the 10th edition, I put my comments on them https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/458861#Comment_458861 since it seems like the more appropriate forum, hope that's okay!

mikanovd

@damnation can you advise how I can change back to the 9th edition? I'd prefer to use that for my work until 10th ed is all sorted out :)

damnation

Just reinstall it from the repository:
https://www.zotero.org/styles?q=id:mcgill-en

mikanovd

thanks!

dlewin

Footnote 96 is correct. Where the original full citation refers to a pinpoint, an immediately subsequent footnote referring to the same source as a whole should use the short form with a supra. If you use ibid in this scenario, then the footnote refers to the pinpoint in the initial citation. But you want to refer to the source as a whole, that's why you can't use ibid. The only way to refer to the source as a whole in this circumstance is to use [short form], [supra note #].