Pulling citations of print sources from online databases

sbalkin

I often import citations of print sources from online databases (MLA Bibliography, for instance). This is one of my favorite Zotero features, since it saves me typing up all the information. However, when I generate bibliographies from these items, they get listed as web sources (in MLA style, which requires me to list the medium). Is there a way for Zotero to detect when a citation pulled from an online database refers to a print source? Barring that, is there a way for me to manually change the medium in my Zotero library so that bibliographies generate the correct medium? Thanks!

adamsmith

MLA is a special case because of their idiosyncratic requirements. Could you give an example? Remember that for the newest MLA, an article in a journal that exists in print should still be listed as "Web" if you actually get it online.
Books should in general come out as print even if you draw them from an online catalogue - if not that's a bug that you should report in the translator section of the forum.

Generally, if you remove the URL and doi for an item it will be treated as a print source in MLA.

sbalkin

Thanks for your quick response. An example:

Scott, Patricia. “Vampires, Death, and Marriage: Strindberg's The Dance of Death I and The Dance of Death II, 1900-1901.” The Symbolism of Vanitas in the Arts, Literature, and Music: Comparative and Historical Studies. Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1992. 67-84. Web.

That's what Zotero generated, but the book is definitely print (it's sitting in front of me now).

I just tried removing the URL, and the citation generated correctly, so thanks for that! It would be ideal if I didn't have to remove the URLs from all the print sources I find in online databases, though, since it is occasionally useful to link back to the database from my library. Guess I'll report to the translator section as you suggest.

While I've got the citation example above, there is another issue I've been wondering about. The quoted chapter title in the citation above contains the titles of two plays (The Dance of Death I and The Dance of Death II). Is it possible for Zotero to detect that these are titles within a title, and italicize them within the quoted chapter title? Hope that made sense.

adamsmith

1. This is the MLA translator? That probably shouldn't put URLs in the URL field ever, or are there full-texts on that database? That'd make thing a lot messier -
you will still be able to link back to the original if a snapshot is attached to the item - that always comes with a URL and that one is never used by a citation. Most translators do that automatically, if not you can right-click and use "attach snapshot of current page".

2. No - there is no way Zotero could detect that automatically.
At the moment rich text mark-up (i.e. any formatting like italics, bold, superscript etc. in titles) is only possible with a workaround (see here: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/667/need-to-italicize-part-a-title/#Item_28).
This will improve in the not so distant future. In either case you'll have to do that by hand.

sbalkin

1. There are always URLs in the URL field within my library when I import citations from the MLA Bibliography (though they don't show up when I generate bibliographies in MLA style). And they do have full-text citations, yes.

2. OK, thanks--just thought I'd check. It's a pretty minor issue.

adamsmith

ad 1) yeah - that will make this a lot trickier - the translator would have to distinguish btw. fulltext or not - depending on the site structure that will be hard.

sbalkin

OK, well at least I know now that I can remove the URLs to make the bibliography generate correctly. Should I still report the bug elsewhere? Thanks for your help!