Ibid: Comments vs. Non-Zotero Citations

michopop

"Zotero shouldn't use 'Ibid' when there are intervening non-Zotero footnotes"

This opens a new issue:

If every footnote is recognized as a citation, then it breaks the ibid.-connection to a previous cited work. That is a problem, because not every footnote contains a reference (it can be only a comment). Example:

1. Georgi Kapriev, “The Modern Study of Byzantine Philosophy,” Bulletin de philosophie Médiévale, no. 48 (2006): 8.
2. Ibid: 89.

Then a comment is added between and the result is:

1. Georgi Kapriev, “The Modern Study of Byzantine Philosophy,” Bulletin de philosophie Médiévale, no. 48 (2006): 8.
2. Blablabla comment.
3. Georgi Kapriev, “The Modern Study of Byzantine Philosophy,” Bulletin de philosophie Médiévale, no. 48 (2006): 89.

But it should be:

1. Georgi Kapriev, “The Modern Study of Byzantine Philosophy,” Bulletin de philosophie Médiévale, no. 48 (2006): 8.
2. Blablabla comment.
3. Ibid: 89.

So, the question is: how to distinguish between comments and manually added (non-zotero) citations, in order to have the "Ibid." after a comment and a full note after a non-zotero citation?

adamsmith

while we're at it - I'm also wondering where this is documented?
I know Simon and Frank have said this is the case, but I couldn't find it anywhere in the specs
http://citationstyles.org/downloads/specification.html#choose

fbennett

At present, I believe that would be a matter for the final edit of the document.

michopop

@fbennet: "a matter for the final edit of the document" - ?

I don't understand - is there a solution for this issue at this moment? If yes - what are the options?

adamsmith

no, there is no solution within Zotero.
That's why you'd have to manually edit, which is what Frank refers to.

michopop

@Adamsmith: This functions, and in my case this is quite bad because I have a lot of comment-footnotes. On the other hand there is a group of citations, that cannot be generated by Zotero at this moment and I have to type them manually.

PS. At this point I am looking for a fast solution (improvisation...), because I have a deadline in less than 4 weeks for a 300 pages thesis. So I would appreciate any good idea how to solve the issue soon.

michopop

Just an idea: is it possible (in the future...) to make zotero recognize only a special type of character (not paragraph!) style or manually added fields within the previous footnotes, which would indicate that this is a manually added citation; and on the other had ignore everything else in between? What do you think?

fbennett

Oh, wait. This can be solved inside the CSL processor, without any change to the plugins. An early fix is possible, if it's certain that this is the correct behavior for all styles.

@michopop & adamsmith (and anyone else listening in), if you can confirm that skipping comment footnotes for purposes of ibid is always the right thing to do, I can introduce that behavior in the next processor release.

Sorry for not catching that earlier. It was late, plus [insert convincing excuse here].

(Edit: The CSL specification also seems to call for that behavior, so I'll go ahead and fix it, barring any objections or words of caution.)

ajlyon

Sounds right to me. If this turns out to be a style-specific thing, it'll have to be worked out whether it needs an expression in CSL, but ignoring manual footnotes for ibid is what I'd expect in any style I've used.

And with that, Frank coming online is my sign that it's time for me to sign off for the night.

adamsmith

I'm not sure - I thought this was done on purpose?

CMoS says:
"The abbreviation ibid. (from ibidem, “in the same place”) usually refers to a single work cited in the note immediately preceding." (14.29)

and they clearly count comments as notes (i.e. "substantive notes" (14.34)

That would suggest that the current status quo is correct.

fbennett

Hmm. Interesting. Well, I have code now to run either way. It's a small change to a single line of code inside the processor, so it could be made into an option, or be put under the control of CSL. What to do. I guess this is one for the CSL list.

@michopop: you can just keep doing what you're doing in Zotero. For your final production, I can provide you with a private variant of the client that behaves as you describe. Meanwhile, could you confirm with your institution or your supervisor that skipping comment notes for the purposes of ibid back-references is their firm convention? Many thanks for raising this, by the way; every iteration of these doubts and niggles makes Zotero a bit stronger.

fbennett

@michopop: Any news? To avoid unnecessary confusion, I'll be holding off on raising this issue on the CSL list until there is evidence that and Ibid rule that skips footnotes containing no citations is a firm requirement in some realm. Your case is the only evidence so far (and if there is no word, we'd probably be inclined to tighten up the CSL specification in line with Chicago, as adamsmith suggests).

michopop

@fbennet: Sorry for not responding, but I was offline for a couple of days.

Thank you a lot for the answer and the enthusiasm to solve the issue. I was sure that this is the standard, but after adamsmiths' comment, I would still prefer to ask once more before I confirm you that this is really the case. I will write again as soon as I have the answer.

michopop

Well... adamsmith was right. The ibid. refers to a citation in the last footnote only. Sorry for bringing confusion with this topic, but this was simply a thing for which I was completely sure (actually, some older publications use such a format, but it is quite unpractical, because sometimes the referred work is cited few pages earlier...).

There is still another Question that is connected to this one:

Within a combined reference/comment footnote I a combination of Zotero and manually added non-Zotero references, such as:

"Zotero-ref" ... "comment" ... "non-Zotero-ref" ... "comment" ... "the same Zotero-ref from the beginning"

I get the following result:

"Zotero-ref" ... "comment" ... "non-Zotero-ref" ... "comment" ... "ibid."

In this case the "ibid." refers to the first Zotero-refference, i.e. ignores the non-zotero content.

Is there a way to solve this problem, i.e. to make it possible for Zotero to recognize the non-Zotero item as a reference, and to give the full reference and not an "ibid."? (for ex. through a special character formating or something similar)

fbennett

It's not a very happy solution, but you could work around this by inserting a reference to a source used elsewhere in your document (any reference other than the "Ibid" target) and then use the "Show Editor" function on that citation to enter the external reference. Zotero will not change citations that have "Show Editor" turned on, but it will recognize them as being to the "real" source underneath (the one you entered through Zotero). That should produce the result you are after. I think.

michopop

Thanks for the feedback!