Disambiguate year suffix problems with the suffixes

p.goglio · February 7, 2012

Basically I have a document and I need to cite three different papers of the same year and of the same authors let's say:
Article 1 Smith et al. 2010 Computer engineering
Article 2 Smith et al. 2010 Linear Programming
Article 3 Smith et al. 2010 Software developping

and I have the following text:
bla bla bla bla bla, (Smith et al. 2010a), bla bla bla bla bla (Smith et al. 2010a, 2010b, 2010c)

Now the question is how I could decide the first article should be cited if I want to cite first article 3 as the first and then named a. I realise zotero does so according to the alphabetic order of the title but it is not what I want. I hope it is clear.
I am looking forward to receiving a reply from you, thanks for the help.

With my best regards

Pietro Goglio

fbennett · February 7, 2012

This sounds like something we're unlikely to support (it's certainly not supported currently). Is there a style used in publication that requires this? It seems as though it would make references harder to find.

Rintze · February 7, 2012

The only way would be to have article 3 appear first in the bibliography by changing the bibliography sorting.

adamsmith · February 7, 2012

What Rintze said should be possible by adding citation-number as a third sort criteria. That way the article you cite first would appear first - if that's what you want we can tell you how to modify the style accordingly.

p.goglio · February 8, 2012

First I would like to thank everybody for the precious help and collaboration. Mr Smith got to the point, I would like that the disambiguation is based on the appearance order in the article. Thus I would like to ask if you could tell how I can modify my style to obtain this...
I am looking forward to receive a reply from you, thanks a lot for the collaboration.

Your Sincerely

Pietro Goglio

adamsmith · February 8, 2012

For general instructions, see here:
http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step
Specifically, find the bibliography section of the style - it starts with <bibliography>
right after that, it will define the sort order. That will be something like
<sort>
<key macro="author"/>
<key macro="year-date"/>
<key macro="title"/>
</sort>

Change that to:
<sort>
<key macro="author"/>
<key macro="year-date"/>
<key variable="citation-number"/>
<key macro="title"/>
</sort>

The key is to have the citation-number line after the year-date (or issued, or issued-date - depends on the style) line. The "title" line may or may not exist. If you have any trouble we need to know which style you're looking at.

p.goglio · February 13, 2012

<author>
<name>PG</name>
<email>pgoglio@grignon.inra.fr</email>
</author>

<category field="biology"/>
<category field="generic-base"/>
<category citation-format="author-date"/>
<updated>2011-11-03T07:46:02+00:00</updated>

</info>
<macro name="container">
<choose>
<if type="chapter paper-conference" match="any">
<text term="in" text-case="lowercase" prefix=", " suffix=": "/>
<names variable="editor translator" delimiter=", " suffix=", ">
<name name-as-sort-order="all" sort-separator=", " initialize-with="."/>
<label form="short" text-case="capitalize-first" prefix=" (" suffix=".)" strip-periods="true"/>
</names>
<group delimiter=", ">
<text variable="container-title" text-case="title"/>
<text variable="collection-title" text-case="title"/>
</group>
</if>
<else-if type="bill book graphic legal_case motion_picture report song" match="any">
<group prefix=", " delimiter=", ">
<text variable="container-title"/>
<text variable="collection-title"/>
</group>
</else-if>
<else>
<group prefix=". " delimiter=", ">
<text variable="container-title" form="short"/>
<text variable="collection-title"/>
</group>
</else>
</choose>
</macro>

<macro name="author">
<names variable="author">
<name name-as-sort-order="all" sort-separator=", " initialize-with="."/>
<label form="short" prefix=" (" suffix=".)" text-case="capitalize-first" strip-periods="true"/>
<substitute>
<names variable="editor"/>
<names variable="translator"/>
<text macro="title"/>
</substitute>
</names>
</macro>
<macro name="author-short">
<names variable="author">
<name form="short" and="text" delimiter=", " initialize-with=". "/>
<substitute>
<names variable="editor"/>
<names variable="translator"/>
<choose>
<if type="bill book graphic legal_case motion_picture report song" match="any">
<text variable="title" form="short"/>
</if>
<else>
<text variable="title" form="short" quotes="true"/>
</else>
</choose>
</substitute>
</names>
</macro>
<macro name="access">
<choose>
<if type="webpage">
<group>
<text value="URL" suffix=" "/>
<text variable="URL"/>
</group>
</if>
</choose>
</macro>
<macro name="title">
<choose>
<if type="report thesis" match="any">
<text variable="title"/>
<group prefix=" (" suffix=")">
<text variable="genre"/>
<text variable="number" prefix=" No. "/>
</group>
</if>
<else-if type="bill book graphic legal_case motion_picture report song speech" match="any">
<text variable="title"/>
<text macro="edition" prefix=", "/>
</else-if>
<else-if type="webpage">
<text variable="title"/>
<text value="WWW Document" prefix=" [" suffix="]"/>
</else-if>
<else>
<text variable="title"/>
</else>
</choose>
</macro>
<macro name="publisher">
<choose>
<if type="report thesis" match="any">
<group delimiter=", ">
<text variable="publisher"/>
<text variable="publisher-place"/>
</group>
</if>
<else>
<group delimiter=", ">
<text variable="publisher"/>
<text variable="publisher-place"/>
</group>
</else>
</choose>
</macro>
<macro name="event">
<choose>
<if variable="event">
<text term="presented at" text-case="capitalize-first" suffix=" "/>
<text variable="event"/>
</if>
</choose>
</macro>
<macro name="issued">
<choose>
<if variable="issued">
<date variable="issued">
<date-part name="year"/>
</date>
</if>
<else-if variable="accessed">
<choose>
<if type="webpage">
<date variable="accessed">
<date-part name="year"/>
</date>
</if>
<else>
<text term="no date" form="short"/>
</else>
</choose>
</else-if>
<else>
<text term="no date" form="short"/>
</else>
</choose>
</macro>
<macro name="edition">
<group delimiter=" ">
<choose>
<if is-numeric="edition">
<number variable="edition" form="ordinal"/>
</if>
<else>
<text variable="edition" suffix="."/>
</else>
</choose>
<text value="ed"/>
</group>
</macro>
<macro name="locators">
<choose>
<if type="article-journal article-magazine article-newspaper" match="any">
<group prefix=" " delimiter=", ">
<group>
<text variable="volume"/>

</group>
<text variable="page"/>
</group>
</if>
<else-if type="bill book graphic legal_case motion_picture report song" match="any">
<group delimiter=", " prefix=". ">
<text macro="event"/>
<text macro="publisher"/>
</group>
</else-if>
<else-if type="chapter paper-conference" match="any">
<group delimiter=", " prefix=". ">
<text macro="event"/>
<text macro="publisher"/>
<group>
<label variable="page" form="short" suffix=" "/>
<text variable="page"/>
</group>
</group>
</else-if>
</choose>
</macro>
<citation et-al-min="3" et-al-use-first="1" disambiguate-add-year-suffix="true" collapse="true">
<sort>
<key macro="issued"/>
<key macro="author"/>
</sort>
<layout prefix="(" suffix=")" delimiter="; ">
<group delimiter=", ">
<text macro="author-short"/>
<text macro="issued"/>
</group>
</layout>
</citation>
<bibliography hanging-indent="true">
<sort>
<key macro="author"/>
<key macro="issued" sort="ascending"/>
<key variable="citation-number"/>

</sort>
<layout>
<group suffix=".">
<text macro="author" suffix=","/>
<text macro="issued" prefix=" " suffix=". "/>
<group>
<text macro="title"/>
<text macro="container"/>
</group>
<text macro="locators"/>
</group>
<text macro="access" prefix=". "/>
</layout>
</bibliography>
</style>

p.goglio · February 13, 2012

Dear All,
in the previous post you have the code. The Journal Style I was trying to prepare was the European Journal of Agronomy which has the following guidelines:

References
Citation in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice
versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal
communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these
references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the
journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or
'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted
for publication.
Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any
further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.),
should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a
different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.
References in a special issue
Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in
the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.
Reference management software
This journal has standard templates available in key reference management
packages EndNote (http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp) and Reference Manager
(http://refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp). Using plug-ins to wordprocessing packages, authors only
need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article and the list of references
and citations to these will be formatted according to the journal style which is described below.
Reference style
Text: All citations in the text should refer to:
1. Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of
publication;
2. Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;
3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication.
Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references should be listed first
alphabetically, then chronologically.
Examples: 'as demonstrated (Allan, 2000a, 2000b, 1999; Allan and Jones, 1999). Kramer et al.
(2010) have recently shown ....'
List: References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if
necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by
the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2010. The art of writing a scientific article. J. Sci.
Commun. 163, 51–59.
Reference to a book:
Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B., 2000. The Elements of Style, fourth ed. Longman, New York.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G.R., Adams, L.B., 2009. How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: Jones, B.S.,
Smith , R.Z. (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age. E-Publishing Inc., New York, pp. 281–304.
Journal abbreviations source
Journal names should be abbreviated according to
Index Medicus journal abbreviations: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html;
List of title word abbreviations: http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service): http://www.cas.org/sent.html.

Once the style will be developed, I would like to ask if you can put it online and put my name as coauthor.
I am looking forward to receiving a reply from you, thanks a lot for the collaboration.

Kind regards

Pietro Goglio

adamsmith · February 13, 2012

does that mean it's working, or it's not working?

adamsmith · February 13, 2012

Also, we have this style in the repository as Elsevier's Harvard - it that doesn't work correctly let us know in what way and we'll fix it.

p.goglio · February 13, 2012

Well the code is working, for what I noticed until know: books, articles, book sections citations. It might cause bugs for other specific citations. As I mentioned previously it is not able to do the following thing:
Let's say I have three citation with the same author in the same year:
Article 1 Smith et al. 2010 Computer engineering
Article 2 Smith et al. 2010 Linear Programming
Article 3 Smith et al. 2010 Software developping

The problem I encountered is that when I cite in the text Smith et al. let's say e.g.:
bla bla bla bla bla bla (Smith et al. 2010c) (meaning the last on the previous list sorted in an alphabetic order, article 3) bla bla bla bla (Smith et al. 2010a, 2010b, 2010c)

While I would like that the following would happen:
bla bla bla (Smith et al., 2010a)(still meaning the last, but disambiguate letter should be picked on appearance basis and not on alphabetical basis) bla bla bla (Smith et al. 2010a, 2010b, 2010c)

I hope I made my point clear. Except for these aspects, the code seems to work. If you want, once the bug is sorted, I can give you my file to upload. Here you can find my mail: p.goglio@sssup.it.
I am looking forward to receiving a reply from you, thanks a lot for the collaboration.

With my best regards

Pietro Goglio

fbennett · February 13, 2012

So to be clear, you want the year-suffix applied in each bibliography entry to be governed by the order in which the item is cited in the text, and not by the ordering in the bibliography?

That is, with cites like this:

(Smith 2000a) ... (Smith 2000b) ... (Smith 2000c)

the bibliography might read:

Smith, Aaardvarks on Alcatraz (2000b)
Smith, Media in Medina (2000a)
Smith, Zippy in Zardoz (2000c)

If so, that's not currently supported. If you can point to a publisher's citation guide that requires this treatment, we can start thinking about how it might be implemented, but at first blush it looks like this would be a rather poor design choice for a bibliography. Some works have very large clusters of year-suffixed items (one user last year reported a use case with over 100), which would make it rather difficult for the reader to track down the bibliography entry corresponding to each in-text reference.

adamsmith · February 13, 2012

I thought he wanted the bibliography as a, b, c, too? Just not ordered by title but by order of appearance. And that should be possible.

fbennett · February 13, 2012

That would certainly work.

@p.goglio: sorry if I misread your post.

p.goglio · February 14, 2012

I think Mr Adamsmith got my point with the following comment:
"I thought he wanted the bibliography as a, b, c, too? Just not ordered by title but by order of appearance. And that should be possible. "
I want to have my reference in text ordered by order of appearance in the text not in the alphabetical order of the title of each citation.
I would like to thank everybody for the help and I am looking forward to have some suggestions. Thanks a lot for the collaboration.

With my best regards

Pietro Goglio

p.goglio · February 17, 2012

Dear All,
I might not be understood well. The question is the following: I am going to develop a style with the CSL and I have problems with the disambiguate.
In particular I would like to cite in text in this way:
bla bla bla bla bla (Smith et al., 2010a indicating article 3), bla bla bla (Smith et al., 2010b indicating article 1) and bla bla (Smith et al., 2010a, 2010b, 2010c)
while in the reference list is the following:
Article 1 Smith et al. 2010 Computer engineering
Article 2 Smith et al. 2010 Linear Programming
Article 3 Smith et al. 2010 Software developping

while with the style I am developing zotero do the following:
bla bla bla bla bla (Smith et al., 2010c indicating article 3), bla bla bla (Smith et al., 2010a indicating article 1) and bla bla (Smith et al., 2010a, 2010b, 2010c)
Basically I would like citation in text will be sorted in the order of appearance and not on the alphabetical order of the title.
I know it is very fussy but when you cite in journal the editor might be very fussy and annoying.
I am looking forward to receive your reply, thanks a lot for the help and collaboration.

Yours sincerely

Pietro Goglio