BUGS in "Book Section" citations (Blue Book style)

josephlookofsky

1) Can anyone explain or fix the superfluous comma (after the second comma and before the word "in") in citations like this:

J. Lookofsky, The CISG Convention and Its Impact on Danish Contract Law, in THE CISG AND ITS IMPACT ON NATIONAL LEGAL SYSTEMS (FERRARI, ED.) , 2a (2008).

2) Is there a good/better way to add the name of the book's "Editor", so it shows up in the cite (I could only add it as part of the book title, so it shows in small capitals)?

noksagt

http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/edited_volumes_and_book_chapters

fbennett

1) Can anyone explain or fix the superfluous comma (after the second comma and before the word "in") in citations like this:

J. Lookofsky, The CISG Convention and Its Impact on Danish Contract Law, in THE CISG AND ITS IMPACT ON NATIONAL LEGAL SYSTEMS (FERRARI, ED.) , 2a (2008).

Bluebook, 17th ed., rule 15.5.2 (according to which the comma is correct, but the "in" connector should be italicized).

I don't have access to a more recent edition at the moment. If the style of this citation form has changed, let me know which edition and rule I should chase up.

josephlookofsky

Now that I got the "editor" right (thanks to noksagt), the citation looks like this:
See Lookofsky, J., The CISG Convention and Its Impact on Danish Contract Law, in THE CISG AND ITS IMPACT ON NATIONAL LEGAL SYSTEMS , 2a (Ferrari ed., 2008).

So my only remaining problem, which is not big, re the "extra" spaces before the word "in" and before 2008 (which I assume are Zotero bugs, unless it's my fault as an inexperienced Zotero-user, since I can't imagine a standard citation with 2 consecutive spaces).

josephlookofsky

Note that these extra spaces, which (still) appear in my Word document, somehow disappear (get corrected) when I send these posts

noksagt

Note that these extra spaces, which (still) appear in my Word document, somehow disappear (get corrected) when I send these posts

You can paste your text between<code>PASTED CITATION</code>tags in Html mode.

I do not get extraneous spaces. Are you certain that one or more of your fields does not have extra spaces?

josephlookofsky

Yes, I had already checked. Of course, I can remove the extra spaces manually in the Word version of the notes, but since then they return whenever I "refresh," I should wait until just before I submit for publication. In any case, and even if we can't resolve this, I appreciate your taking the time to check and comment.

fbennett

The extraneous spaces also appear in the plugin output of my own install of 2.0.

I've taken a look at the Bluebook style file. Unfortunately, as some of the comments in the file indicate, the code in the file is not well composed. I'd like to help sort the style out, but it needs to be done property (so that we don't get weird glitches like this in future), and it will be awhile before I can get to it.

(Meanwhile, if anyone else wants to have a go, feel free.)

adamsmith

sorry, I'm out. I don't touch law styles. They're kryptic to me.

josephlookofsky

Quite apart from the fact that double spaces probably count as errors in any citation style, those of us who only touch law styles would be very grateful to fbennett if he (when he has the time) can help sort out the Bluebook style.

fbennett

I have some other pressing matters on my plate locally, but I'll certainly get to it.

Note that general improvements in support for legal styles are in the offing. When Zotero 2.1 comes out, it will include an upgrade of the citation processor to CSL 1.0, which supports footnote backreferences and the "five-footnote rule". Also, for legal materials specifically, the particular CSL processor to be used by Zotero 2.1 has been built to support the collapsing of parallel references, both in footnotes and in tables of authorities.

As a musing side note, one of the things that seems to slow down progress on legal styles is the labor-intensive nature of legal training and legal practice. Quite apart from whether law students have technical skills (and I believe that some do), legal education is an intrusive experience that places heavy day-to-day demands on student time. After law school, of course, graduates find themselves in a scramble for partnership, billing their time in 6-minute blocks ... it's not an ecosystem conducive to voluntary collaboration for the general weal. There's plenty of demand for turnkey solutions, but a very sparse population of persons with skills and available time, and very few incentives for potential contributors to push against the tide.

So bear with us. If you have any special needs that you hope to see addressed with the eventual move to CSL 1.0, feel free to post them to the zotero-legal group.

adamsmith

Joseph - the problem is that - as Frank suggests, too - it's a good idea to understand a style pretty well before modifying it. And for legal styles the style requirements are so complex (and from the perspective of a non lawyer/legal scholar bizarre and puzzling) that I've just given up on it.
It's probably as much work for me to properly understand bluebook as it is for you to learn enough xml/csl to properly code bluebook (it's really not that hard).

Frank - I don't know what it is about law - but I don't think "time" or intrusiveness is the reason - my friends in top 10 US law programs certainly didn't work harder than Ph.D students at a good University.
I think it might be more that the nature of law school is that it is a professional school, where people get socialized into a profession, rather than an academic program like most PhDs, where people get socialized into a scholarly community of which they will likely remain part for the rest of their life. I find it unsurprising that the latter is more likely to get people involved into projects benefitting that scholarly community.

And generally, PhD students seem to be the most likely group to volunteer here - if I'm not mistaken Ajlyon, Rintze and me are all in doctoral programs and noksagt started contributing while he was still in a PhD program. And you just don't have those in law.

fbennett

Yes, I didn't mean to suggest that law students and lawyers work harder than people in other fields; as you say, it's rather the nature of the profession and of the training process. The law school experience is driven by the firms that take on graduates, and the firms themselves operate pretty much as risk managers for hire (right, well ... that's the theory, anyway). A good lawyer is thinking pretty constantly about how to explain things to client if things go haywire. "We bought the best and it broke" may be viable as a last-ditch finger-pointing line of defense. "We built this thing and we messed up", not so much. I think people in law tend to see this kind of work, for themselves, as pure downside. (Law librarians are a different story; there is an active community of common interest there. Unfortunately, most are also very busy.)

Anyway, we'll get there. Small steps. :)

adamsmith

"We bought the best and it broke" may be viable as a last-ditch finger-pointing line of defense. "We built this thing and we messed up", not so much.

so true. That might summarize the problem of corporate adaptation of open source in general. Oh well - good luck :-).