bibliography style for a non-academic web publication

stomper

Hi,

I'm currently using Zotero to create a database of references (both academic and popular) for a non-academic web site. I create a bibliography by selecting a collection (folder) in Zotero, right clicking, and requesting "Create Bibliography from Collection..." and then paste the result into the web publishing program.

Because this site is non-academic, I'd like to be able to output bibliographies structured and formatted in a way that fits with a more casual approach, as opposed to the usual Author-date or footnote format in academics.

In particular I'd like to create bibliographies that are sorted by Date (Descending) so the most recent material is on top. It'd also be great if the title could be a hyperlink to the URL I have stored, but that's less important.

However, all the styles I've tried have come out as Author-date or footnote. I tried sorting the collection by date descending before creating the bibliography, but that didn't change the output.

Any suggestions for how to accomplish this? I'm hoping there's an existing style that I can utilize and I won't have to attempt a new one...

Thanks!!

adamsmith

No, I don't think there is an existing style - from an academic point of view ordering by date first is a crazy idea (although I fully understand why you'd want to do it in a different context, so this isn't meant as a swipe at your project) and pretty much all styles are academic.

This is very easy to fix, though.
First, have a look here
http://www.zotero.org/support/csl_simple_edits

Then pick the style you otherwise like best.
In the bibliography section of the style (i.e. a couple of lines after <bibliography>), you'll likely see something like
<sort>
<key macro="author"/>
<key variable="title"/>
</sort>
(this sorts by author, then by title, alphabetically. This will vary slightly by style).

just change this to
<sort>
<key variable="issued" sort="descending"/>
</sort>

which will sort by date, with the most recent on top.

stomper

will try, thanks!

stomper

I was able to change the sort order, thanks! but along the way I discovered what may be a bug in the Chicago Manual of Style (Annotated Bibliography) style, which was the one I chose. This error occurs in that style as downloaded from Zotero. (for me anyway).

When I create a bibliography (with option for listing URLs turned on) there is a piece of code that appears in the bibliography between the citation and the annotation. For example:

Richards, C E, P J Magin, and R Callister. “Is your prescription of distance running shoes evidence-based?.” British Journal of Sports Medicine 43, no. 3 (March 2009): 159-162. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18424485.
style="text-indent:0.5in;">PMID: 18424485

The exposed code is this string: style="text-indent:0.5in;">

The thing that says PMID is the current annotation, so that's okay.

I looked around in the XML for a string about text-indenting, but couldn't find it. But I'm new to this. :)

Any tips on how to get that code-bit out?

Thanks.

adamsmith

how do you create the bibliography exactly?

stomper

It happened in the zotero style editor/previewer screen. It also happens if I right-click on a collection (folder) and then say "Create bibliography..."

stomper

An additional detail:

The error doesn't seem to occur when I turn off the "include URLs of papers" option. But I really do want to show the URLs.

noksagt

I can replicate this is 2.0.8. There is improper nesting of the html tags:<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18424485.<div">
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18424485.<div</a>
style="text-indent:0.5in;">

stomper

noksagt, thanks for tracking this down. seems like a relatively simple matter of moving that double quote and perhaps a <div . but i am new to this ... where do i go to move it?

adamsmith

this needs to be fixed in Zotero - I don't think there's much you can do.