Disappearing Italics in bibliography (MLA)

bevweber

I just refreshed my bibliography because I was having trouble with short titles not appearing (multiple works by one author - for citations of one particular book, no short title appears; in the rest, it does).

Now, my italics have disappeared in bib.

Tried copying and pasting text into new doc, and regenerating bib, to no avail.

adamsmith

is your Zotero version up to date? I recall that being an issue in an earlier version (2.1.7 or even 2.1.6) but I thought that had been fixed.
Have you tried switching citation style back and forth? (do all troubleshooting in the new document to be save).

edit: also - which Word processor? And are you using bookmarks or Reference Marks/Fields (Document Preferences in the word processor plugin).

bevweber

I have Zotero 2.1.8...
I've tried switching citation styles back and forth. No luck. (Still having the issue with some short titles not appearing, too.)

adamsmith

are you using track changes? If so, try turning it off.

bevweber

No, sorry, no track changes. I also tried closing Firefox/Zotero and Word doc, and reeopening both, then going through the process of changing citation styles. No luck.

bevweber

Firefox 5.0, btw, and Microsoft Word 2010.
Edit: Using fields.

jeffbilbro

I have the same problem with my short titles not appearing in citations when I have more than one work by that author. They seem to work for certain authors, but not for others. I haven't had the italics problem, though. I'm using a mac with zotero 2.1.8. Thanks for any suggestions.

fbennett

Which style?

jeffbilbro

MLA

bevweber

Let me know if you'd rather I open a separate thread for the short title problem. I just put them together because they happened at the same time for some reason.

To clarify: I have six works by the same author. For four of them, the short title appears; for the other two, it does not. I have gone through the entries in the database to ensure that each author's name is exactly the same - it is.

Italics problem still happening. Italics DO appear in short titles, just not in bibliography.

Thanks folks!

adamsmith

Have you re-installed MLA from the repository? The style has been updated relatively recently and I don't think that update would have installed automatically. If that doesn't work, please export the six authors as an RDF file and put it as a public gist on
gist.github.com so fbennett can have a look.

edit: Re-installing MLA is almost certain to not change the italics issue, this is only for the short-titles. I have no idea about italics - maybe fbennett wants to take a look at that, too?

bevweber

re-installing did not take care of either issue.

Here are the six citations for the short title issue.
git://gist.github.com/1071980.git
Edit: https://gist.github.com/1071980

Thanks!

adamsmith

OK, this certainly should work and produce short titles.
which of the two don't get a short title? The two book sections?

Could you try this a) in a fresh, new document and b) in the Zotero test panel:
chrome://zotero/content/tools/csledit.xul
and report back

As for italics - until someone finds the time to look at this for you, you could try having a look at the field codes that Zotero inserts - I think you can toggle them with F9 (after selecting the entire document) or under Tools--> Options
You're looking for anything that looks off - like an "ERROR" in a field or something like that. You could also try what happens if you split the document in two parts and create a bibliography from each part - if one of them looks right, this would seem to be due to a corruption of the document at one specific point.

bevweber

The two that don't get short titles are Imperatives to Re-Imagine the Planet (book) and Death of a Discipline (book).

Will do on checking field codes.

bevweber

Ok: I tried creating a new document with ONLY the parts affected by these short titles: not only does it work, but the italics are also appearing in the bib!!! So - the point of corruption must somehow be elsewhere in the document.

Will now go through field codes.

adamsmith

for debugging look at steps 7 and 8 here for some tips:
http://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_troubleshooting#debugging_broken_documents

bevweber

Thanks Adam. This is apparently the corrupted field code - not sure if it is of use to you all, but here it is:
{ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM {"citationID":"e9ro2o3qc","citationItems":[{"locator":"19","label":"page","uri":["http://zotero.org/users/43732/items/3UN4VKAC"]}]} }

THIS citation shows up normally, but when it is in the document, I have the problems with both short titles and italics in bib.

adamsmith

Cool. Glad you got that to work!
So if you insert a citation with that item again, does the document break again? I.e. is this a corrupted field code (which it doesn't look like) or might there be something wrong with the item you're inserting? In the latter case, would you mind putting an RDF of it up on github again?

bevweber

Now my document is breaking every time I manually update using Zotero refresh. I wish I could find a consistent pattern as to when or why, but even without this citation in there, it happens.

Edit: Document also breaks with same problems if I cancel out of inserting a citation.

If I create a brand new document, with that citation removed, and do not manually update, everything looks good.

bevweber

That citation ALSO still breaks the document, have uploaded RDF.
https://gist.github.com/1072218

mdscaglione

I have a similar problem using ASA style and MS Word 2010 in Windows 7. The italics in the bibliography disappeared after a manual refresh and never came back. I tried copying the text to a different file and got the same results: after an initial correct format, the italics disappear when I refresh the list manually.

bevweber

The problem seems to somehow proliferate - I isolate a citation that seems to be causing the problem, remove it, create a new document, and all is fine until the manual refresh - which then seems to corrupt additional citations.

fbennett

I took a look at the RDF you posted. I don't see anything in there that could be causing corruption. The cause is still a mystery.

It would be helpful to be able to see the exact input that is being provided to Zotero. If possible, please install the CSL Feedback Gadget (link is direct to the XPI installer), join the CSL Test Submission group, and submit a test for a corrupted citation. If the test doesn't turn up anything, we'll know to look elsewhere for the root cause.

bevweber

fbennett, I'm afraid having trouble figuring out what to do here. Installed the Feedback gadget, and joined the group. Can't find an item that lists styles (the folder seems to be empty), and there is no button for submitting a test when I edit or add citation.

fbennett

Starting with step one, if you have signed up for the group and synced, you should see a "CSL Test Submission" group among your groups in the left panel. Does it not appear?

bevweber

- I see CSL Test Submission group
- Have installed and selected bluebook-19th.csl as style
- Have inserted the problem citations in a word document
- Do not see a button for "save as CSL test-submission"

fbennett

Ah. There was a stray debugging comment in the code of the plugin, which may have been crashing it on your system. Try reinstalling (from the same URL), and see if that gets it going. I'm really very curious why italics are disappearing on you.

fbennett

A couple of other points, assuming that the new version of the plugin works for you:

(1) bluebook-19th.csl does not have a bibliography, so you'll want to test against the style with which the problem originally turned up;

(2) I'm not sure what you mean by "item that lists styles" or by the folder that appears to be empty. In any case, you should get a submission button in the Edit Bibliography popup, and opening an entry for editing and clicking the submit button should be sufficient.

The plugin is still fairly green, so if you have problems, feel free to write.

bevweber

- I re-installed the plugin, restarted Firefox, synced, started new document with the citations that appeared to be the problem citations, but no luck (no button)
- Bluebook and styles listed - I was referring to the directions on the CSL test group page, which state that only the styles listed in "Supported Styles" will work (the only style listed is bluebook-19th.csl)
- I did seem to discover that both problems - missing short titles in some citations and missing italics throughout the bibliography - would occur simultaneously.
- In my latest document - I have been frequently copying and pasting into a new document - the document isn't breaking! I really wish I could tell you why.

fbennett

Let's forget the plugin thing. It seems only to be increasing the number of points of failure, which won't help.

I've been able to reproduce the issue with missing short titles. It seems to fail consistently when the number of cites to be disambiguated is odd, and to work correctly when the number of cites is even. I'll take a look to see if that, at least, can be fixed.

fbennett

The short titles issue is now fixed, in processor release 1.0.193, just checked in. The new processor version should appear in the next release of Zotero.

The cause of missing italics and the failure of the plugin are still puzzling. Do you see any errors in Firefox Tools -> Error Console after a refresh wipes out the italics? It would be down toward the bottom of the listing in that case.