Unable to select prefix box when editing citation with multiple authors

seans_potato_biz

When I create a citation in MS Word 2010 with two authors, I can add a prefix. If however, I click OK and then click EDIT CITATION, I am unable to select the prefix box. Is that a bug?

adamsmith

you have made sure that one of the citations is selected? Because affixes can be applied to individual citations in a multi-citation you need to have one of the citations selected to add a prefix/suffix.

seans_potato_biz

I see. That was the problem.

What sort of thing is it envisioned that a person would want to prefix? I know what things I prefix but I wonder if it's not what the feature was designed for?

If I say, for example "blah blah blah primordial germ cells (PGCs; Smith et al. 2011), you see that I'm at a point where two separate things need to be put in brackets; one is the abbreviation of a term I've used for the first time and the second is the reference. I believe the appropriate thing to do is separate them with a semicolon. However, the system as it is, requires me to first ascertain which will be the first reference before I can do add my prefix and this becomes wrong if I add another reference which was published earlier. You know what I mean?

fbennett

Yep. The field normally takes things like the "cf. " in "cf. Smith 2000". They're different use cases, so for the present, at least, you just need to take care.

adamsmith

and we really want this to be flexible, to allow things like
(cf. Smith 1776; see also Marx & Engels 1848)
so the ability to attach prefixes to a reference is quite important.

seans_potato_biz

You could, if wanted, have a separate prefix/suffix box that always prefixes or suffixes the first or last reference respectively?

adamsmith

that's very costly gui-wise, though, I'm not crazy about the idea.