Bibliography plus abstracts

poirmw

I've searched the database, and I cannot find up-to-date information on how I might produce a bibliography with abstracts. Has that issue been addressed over the past year and a half. I notice that it has been discussed in or around 2009.

What I have in mind here is something that is not especially uncommon in programmes such as Zotero. Suppose one wants to produce a lengthy bibliography wherein each entry would be followed by an abstract, if one exists for that entry. Can that be done in Zotero? It can in many other programmes.

Here is an example of what I have in mind from Library Master. I've shortened the abstract for obvious reasons.

Agassi, Joseph. "Rationality and the 'Tu Queque' Argument." Inquiry XVI, no. Winter
(1973): 395-406.

ABSTRACT: The "tu quoque" argument is the argument that since in the end
rationalism rests on an irrational choice of and commitment to rationality,
rationalism is as irrational as any other comitment. The question raised
here is, in what sense is a rationalist committed to his rationality, or an
irrationalist to his specific axiom? The tradition views only the life-long....

Thank you in advance for answering the query.

MWP

fbennett

Yes, you can do this. Zotero items have an Abstract field, the content of which is passed to the CSL processor (the tool that generates formatted bibliographies) in the CSL "abstract" variable. Information on editing citation styles is available here:

http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles

poirmw

If I understand this correctly, this would change every bibliography that I produce to include abstracts? But it is not every bibliography that I want to change. It's only the occasional one that requires the abstract(s). Suppose, for instance, I were producing a large bibliography of 200 to 300 hundred pages on a specific topic. I would want the abstracts. But I would not want the abstracts if I were producing a bibliography for a short paper of 25 to 30 pages. Does that make sense? Am I reading you correctly when I say that once the change is made, it applies to all subsequent bibliographies produced by Zotero, ...short ones as well as long ones? Thanks again.

MWP

fbennett

You would craft a CSL style that includes abstracts, and use it to produce your annotated bibliographies when needed. When producing documents that don't need the abstract information, you would just use another style.

adamsmith

This thread, e.g. has more detailed instructions:
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4671/editing-apa-style-to-include-abstract-for-annotated-bibliography/
If you search the forum for annotated bibliography you'll find more on this, including several threads with example code.

poirmw

On April 21st, 2010, Adam Smith wrote in response to a query:

you'll need a separate style: go here http://gist.github.com/374729
download the style by right-clicking on "Raw" at the top right and "Save LInk as..."
you'll have a file called apa-annotated.csl, drag and drop it to any open Firefox Window and it will install.

Once installed you can select between Annotated American Psych... and the regular style.

(Now me:) I was able to install the APA style located at "github" and make a few minor modifications to it. But this is not the style that I want. What I want is the comparable Chicago style. Is this style at github too? I cannot seem to locate it if it is there. Can someone give me directions? In advance, thanks.

MWP

adamsmith

no - I just put that one up quickly - but you can just make your own Chicago version.
There already is a Chicago Annotated on the repository. Take that style and replace <text variable="note" .../> towards the end of it with <text variable="abstract".../>
Here are general instructions
http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

poirmw

Adam Smith: Thank you. I did not think that it would be as simple as adding the lines
<text variable="abstract" prefix=" Abstract: "
/>
near the bottom of the file.

If I might just point out something: It is my impression that most people will not try amending a style file because they think that it will foul-up their database if they make a mistake. But, correct me if I am wrong. If I understand this correctly, changing a style file cannot affect the database, but will affect only they way the data is presented on screen and eventually on paper? Is that right?

Again, thank you. I know that I would not have known what instruction and where to enter it in the "Chicago Annotated" if it had not been for your help.

adamsmith

you're right - you can do absolutely no damage by editing styles. They don't affect the database at all and if you break an existing style you can just re-install it from the repository.

poirmw

If I might ask two short questions? I've searched the various fora for this and none of the suggestions work for me. So, here is my question. How do I single space each bibliographical entry and double space between the entries? I notice that some have suggested that this be done with the word-processor, but I imagine that it can also be done by modifying the style. And if that is possible, where do I place the line in the cls file? Again, thanks.

MWP

adamsmith

that should be the default. The respective options are line-spacing (space between lines) and entry-spacing (extra lines between entries). The defaults are 1 and 1 - i.e. single spacing and an additional line between entries. In the style this would be
<bibliography line-spacing="1" entry-spacing="1" [...other options...]>
Because this has to interact with the word processor it doesn't always work as desired, but as a general rule it should. You can obviously play with those values to see if you have any better luck.

poirmw

I've been able to make most of the modifications to the style Chicago-note-bibliography, except for the one that is most important, namely, double spacing between the entries. No matter what I do, I cannot get it to double space, and, as you can see below, I have experimented. I have added the "abstract," and managed to get the style programme to place the word "abstract" in upper-case letters wherever there is an abstract available. See immediately below:

Illich, Ivan. Limits to Medicine: Medical Nemesis: The Exploitation of Health. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1976.
———. The Rivers North of the Future. Edited by David Cayley. Toronto: House of Anansi, 2009. ABSTRACT: When Ivan Illich died in 2002, several obituaries painted this monsignor-turned-social critic as a man past his best whose later work lacked the social relevance of his influential debut, Deschooling Society. David Cayley, Illich’s friend and colleague since the 1970s, and producer of a radio series for CBC’s Ideas and a companion book, Ivan Illich in Conversation (House of Anansi, 1990), presents the …

What you are no seeing here is the indentation, but it does that too. However, I cannot copy it to this comment.

I wonder if the Chicago style in question is preventing double-spacing. If it is, I cannot find the command that is doing this. I've looked, but with no success. Thanks for your help. I would not have known what to do on my own.

MWP

adamsmith

Did you read my instructions above? Chicago has entry-spacing=
0" in the bibliography - just remove that and you should get an extra line.

poirmw

When I delete the line in question, this is what I get:

XML Parsing Error: mismatched tag. Expected: </style>.
Location: file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/User/Application%20Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/f25yh804.default/zotero/styles/chicago-note-bibliography.csl
Line Number 511, Column 6: </bibliography>
-----^

Notice, I am no making any sort of modification to the line that reads </style> . In fact, I am working about fifteen lines above the line that reads </style> when I delete the line you suggest deleting.

The message above superimposes itself on the Google opening page in a pale yellow colour when I try to install the modifies style.

I think that I am going to leave well-enough alone. I've run out of modifications to try.
Thanks again.

MWP

Rintze

You shouldn't delete the whole line, just the

entry-spacing="0"

bit.

poirmw

And that is exactly what I did do. I did not mean to suggest that I deleted the entire line when I said above "I delete the line you suggest deleting." I meant that I deleted the words entry-spacing="0", and this resulted in the error message I quoted.

adamsmith

Double check the file - you did something wrong in the line starting with
<bibliography...
(or you deleted that bit)
Since for Zotero the bibliography never starts, it throws an error when you try to end it with </bibliography
you can post the style to gist.github as a public gist if you want to.

poirmw

The style file does not end with </bibliography>. That is the penultimate line. It ends with </style>.

Simply put, I've noticed that if I delete spacing-value="0" on line 485, beginning at column 111, I get the error message above. If I re-introduce spacing-value="0", the error message does not appear when I install the style. By the way, I am speaking of the style Chicago-annotated-bibliography.cls

MWP

fbennett

@poirmw,

There is definitely a syntax error in your edited version of the style, and it will definitely be simple to fix.

Please paste a copy of the edited style (the version that produces the error) to http://gist.github.com/, save it as a "public gist", and post the URL from the address bar back here so one of us can take a look.

adamsmith

You're not following me.
I can absolutely promise you, with 100% certainty, that you're doing something more than just deleting entry-spacing="0"
My best guess would be that you delete, together with entry-spacing="0" the closing bracket > at the end of the line, but that's just a guess.

I'd recommend you try this out in the test pane instead of re-installing the style each time:
chrome://zotero/content/tools/csledit.xul
you'll get immediate feedback there.

L. 485 tells Zotero that the bibliography section starts there. If the line is broken, Zotero doesn't know the bibliography section starts. L. 512 - </bibliography> - tells Zotero that the bibliography section ends there. But if Zotero has never been told that the bibliography section started - i.e. if line 485 is somehow broke - it gets confused and throws an error. That's what's going on here.

edit: and what fbennett says - if you can't spot the error yourself, post a copy of your version of the style.

poirmw

Thank you all for your help.

Just to clarify: 1) No, I did not delete the bracket ">" I suspected that it was there as an end of line requirement. 2) If by the expression "the line is broken" you mean that part of a word is on one line and a remaining part is on another line, then that is not happening. I know that something like that is verboten. However, if a break can be hidden from a text editor like TreePad, or another text editor of that nature, or if there is invisible code somewhere, then maybe. This leads me to ask the question: Should I be editing a style with a text editor, or should I be using something else?

I am going to try to try to find the solution to this over the next little while. When I do, I'll report back. Again, thank you.

MWP

adamsmith

text editor is fine. Look - it's going to take me 2mins to find out what's wrong if you'd actually post the style like both Frank and I have been asking you to repeatedly. That's really going to be much faster.
By "the line is broken" I mean that something isn't right with it. I have no idea what without being able to take a look.

poirmw

Adam:
Go here: https://gist.github.com/2a249bd58b4f6e723325
MWP

fbennett

It's the hard return after ASTRACT:. Remove the hard return, and the style should validate and function normally.

adamsmith

Frank - the style validates fine for me, and works fine for me I think the return should be OK there - (it's also, I understand, there on purpuse).
But also - this is the version with entry-spacing="0" which I understand has been working all along. If I remove it, it's still working for me.
I'd have to see a version that throws the error that poirmw describes.

poirmw

Adam: Maybe I was misunderstanding this, but I thought that it was possible to achieve single spacing within a paragraph or entry and double spacing between the entries. It was that that I was trying to achieve, and obviously not able to work out.

I may have misread this, but I thought that someone in a position to know on the forum stated that it could be achieved by deleting entry-spacing="0" and replacing this with line-spacing="1". But I must have misread the intent of that statement. In any case, I see that I can achieve this within MSWord by modifying "Styles and Formatting." In fact, now I recall. It was someone on the forum who stated that that should not have to be done through MSWord or OO, and that that sort of modification should be possible within the style programme.

MWP

adamsmith

<blockquote>Adam: Maybe I was misunderstanding this, but I thought that it was possible to achieve single spacing within a paragraph or entry and double spacing between the entries. It was that that I was trying to achieve, and obviously not able to work out.

I may have misread this, but I thought that someone in a position to know on the forum stated that it could be achieved by deleting entry-spacing="0" and replacing this with line-spacing="1". </blockquote>
no, you understood all of that correctly. You wouldn't even have needed to insert line-spacing="1", as that is the default value. You're doing something else wrong and without you posting the style that you tried to modify and that isn't working for you to github I have no way of telling you what. I took the style you posted to github and removed entry-spacing="0" and that worked for me.

poirmw

I think our wires are crossed to some extent:

1. The github file is the style with which I am having problems. All you have to do to have may problems is place line-spacing+"1" in the place where entry-spacing="0" currently is, and it should result in a failure to install.

2. What I did not know is that line-spacing+"1" is the default value. But if it is the default value, why is it that I am not getting double spacing between entries with the github file as it is, (which by the way is otherwise working well)? The only way I can get double spacing between entries is through MSWord.

3. I too notice that the style worked well even if entry-spacing="0" was or was not there.

adamsmith

line spacing controls the general spacing between lines. Entry spacing the space between entries. If you want double spacing between entries you need to just delete entry spacing="0" - that's all. If that doesn't produce the desired result, see my comment about the fact that space formatting via csl isn't 100% precise right at the beginning.

If you add line-spacing="1" to the style you posted it still works file.
If you add line-spacing+"1" it fails - no one ever told you to do that (I hope).

edit: so to clarify - if you get an installation error when installing a csl file, post it to github. I can tell you quickly and with certainty what's going wrong. But I really need exactly the version of the style that fails. If you can't get line spacing to work right, although you're able to change entry-spacing and line-spacing settings I can't help you and you're better of fixing that in word.