Bluebook law-review

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  • Ah ... right. So much for easy solutions.

    I'm afraid this will require changes in CSL and Zotero to support. They're not major changes, but it may take awhile to see it.
  • Many thanks for trying.

    BTW do you know how I would find out about the status of Lexis westlaw and other legal translators? I've been posting in the relevant forums and I haven't got a response
  • Actually the current version of the supra could be made very useful even without the full fix by a couple of simple changes

    (1) Have subsequent cites read "supra note __" without specifying the footnote number of the first occurrence. This is how many people now write pre-final drafts by hand, and Zotero still offers a HUGE ENORMOUS advantage in that it automatically identifies the first occurrence and places the full cite in.

    (2) Can it be made easier to fill in the true first occurrence by hand when I write the final draft? In other words, I see that cite X first occurs in fn4, so I want to change the placeholders "supra note __" to "supra note 4" by hand. In my test efforts, I seem to erase the whole supra cite when I try to replace the __ by hand

    (3) Final issue. Suppose two articles by the same author are initially cited in the same footnote. The supra cites are now identical: for both articles subsequent supra cites say "Hart supra note__". The official bluebook rule for this is that you make up a custom identifier that includes a short version of the article name. I think the field "short title" would work for this.

    Again. many many many thanks!
  • We do not have translators for Lexis and Westlaw primarily because George Mason does not subscribe to them. Without access our devs cant work on them. Our heinonline translator is broken, ticket created https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/968
  • Have you checked with the law library? All law libraries have at least some Lexis and Westlaw access (I think!!) though it might not include all sources.

    Thanks!
  • Hey,
    I'm quite enjoying the implementation of "supra", despite its incorrect reference numbers, because, as Isis says, wow, a lot better to just be able to fill in the right number.

    However. (There's always a however.) Support for "Id." (which is the Bluebook version of Ibid) would be equally helpful for me. Even implementing "Ibid" which I could do a find-and-replace on, would be really helpful.

    I looked at the style, and it doesn't look like Ibid is turned on at all (which I think bdarcus said a few days ago.) I can see that the conditional that's implementing "supra" right now, is a simple "if first citation, do the whole citation; else do supra and a reference number." Is it possible in CSL to do a more complicated conditional that would implement both? i.e., "if first citation, do the whole thing; else if referring to same source as immediately previous reference, do "Id" (or Ibid); else do supra and reference #;"

    I worry I'm being too demanding, but it's just that I'm so excited by the potential of Zotero. Taught a workshop on it at the University of Michigan library on Tuesday - there were oohs and ahhs for a lot of features, as well as for the exchanges in this forum. Thanks!
  • Like nas, I don't want to be too demanding. And if there is any way I can help, I would love to. FWIW my top priority is getting the "supra note" changed to blanks

    Thanks!
  • OK, try now. I was in a hurry, so didn't test it, but this stuff should (mostly) work as expected. I still need to add support for cite pages though (I think).
  • edited March 30, 2008
    It works! The supras now have blanks! What a fantastic program!!!!!!

    Again, realizing that these changes will take some time, I summarize for future reference what I think are the remaining issues for law review cites.

    Shorter term: (based on my understanding, maybe wrongly, of complexity)

    (1) the word supra, but no other part of the cite, should be italicized

    (2) Id where immediately preceding cite is same source

    (3) In initial full cite,
    (a) first page only, not page range of article
    (b) comma between initial page cite and page referred to

    (4) page cite for supras

    (5) (a) Distinguish between two articles by the same author that are initially cited in the same footnote, probably by using short title instead of author names.

    (b)Last name only in supra cite

    Question for nas and other users: How about as a temporary fix using short title for all supra cites? No simple alternative is strictly correct, and short titles eliminate confusion


    Long term
    Automatic numbering of initial footnote in supra cites

    Again, endless thanks for eliminating MUCH drudgery!!!
  • Hi

    Just wondering what the status is of the two different systems of citations, one for practitioners and one for law reviews. My case cites are now in small caps, which I assume is the practititoner style, while I'd like italics. Is it possible now to choose which style to use, or is this in development?

    Also, I understand it may be a while, but is there a target date for the remaining changes in the law review cites?

    Thanks!
  • Isis: on italics vs. small-caps and other details, the issue isn't what you want in this case, but what Bluebook says. Can you confirm I've made a mistake there?

    On your other things, all I can say is that I will try to get to it when I can. There's no target date, in other words. I do want to include both BB styles eventually.

    OTOH, hopefully I'll get some help soon to finish a style editing app so you don't have to rely on me or others ;-)
  • A very useful reference is Introduction to Basic Legal Citation by Peter W. Martin at the Cornell Legal Information Institute. It synthesizes the different systems and point out where they differ.

    http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/full_toc.htm

    His discussion says either case names are either underlined (outdated with word processing) or italicized, under all citation forms

    Also useful and authoritative, saying case cites always ital:

    http://www.alwd.org/publications/pdf/TR2_ComparisonChart.pdf


    which again says that both bluebook and ALWD use itals for case cites.

    I can find no source that says small caps for cases. The bluebook, but not ALWD, seems to use small caps for

    Constitutions: Abbreviations (CAL. CONST.)
    Statutes: Statutory abbreviation (FLA. STAT.)
    Books: Author names and titles (AUTHOR, TITLE OF BOOK 55–56 (2005).
    Periodicals: Periodical abbreviation (MICH. L. REV.)
    Restatements: Title (RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS)

    I'm happy to do any further research that would help
  • I'm working on this style for myself now (and willing to share results with others, so I want to do it right.) I have so far improved typeface rules for different types of citations, but I have a couple of questions about how CSL works, etc.

    A couple of the existing styles have a <choose> tree in their bibliography formatting rules, to choose between different document types. Bluebook is so complicated, I think it'd work really well to have a choose tree in the citation formatting rules - one setup for journals, another for cases, another for books, another for online materials, at least. Is there a good reason _not_ to do this?
  • nas
    edited April 13, 2008
    {nevermind}
  • nas
    edited April 12, 2008
    Anyone know what the variable name is for whatever the "Court" field maps to? I've tried everything I can think of.

    Similarly, what does "Journal Abbr" correspond to?

    Is there any systematic list anywhere of what the correspondences are between CSL variables and Zotero fields? (Other than the incomplete list in http://dev.zotero.org/csl_syntax_summary.)
  • edited May 8, 2008
    Hi all

    Just wondering if/when either the Zotero folks or nas will be posting an updated style. I donit mean to be impatient, just excited!

    Thanks!
  • I might be able to take a look at it next week.
  • That would be great-thanks
  • I'd be happy to share my (extremely flawed, but I think somewhat improved) new version, but I actually don't know how/where to upload it, or whether I even have followed the correct coding procedures or anything...
  • @nas: can you send it to me off-forum? I'll take a look and clean it up where appropriate.
  • Any expected date yet for the new version? I need to clean up a draft and would LOVE to be able to just Zotero-ize it

    Thanks!
  • I've just checked in the changes that nas made, though I didn't really have a chance to do much with it, nor to test it.

    Also, there was one major question mark I had (namely whether the 'source' macro is really needed), which is included as a comment in the file.
  • edited May 25, 2008
    The nas version is great-thanks!!

    The only significant problem I see so far is in supra cites to cases, which are not providing the short titles, even when I fill these in by hand in the original database. In other words, I get

    , supra note ___

    instead of

    Burdine, supra note ___

    Journal article supra cites look fine.
    Again, thanks to nas and all involved
  • Another question about cases that probably needs to be referred to another department. There is no place in the Case template for docket numbers. Most citation formats don't use them, but they are sometimes useful, especially for cases that are still being litigated. to whom should I address this?
    Thanks
  • @Isis: short title should work for that case now.

    As I've said previously, from the CSL perspective, I'd just map docket number to the generic document "number." Zotero ought to do the same for its internal number.

    Do you agree?
  • Maybe I am being dense, but I updated the bluebook style and still can't get it to work. Here's a sample

    1 Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971).
    2 Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters Et Al., 438 U.S. 567 (1978).
    3 , supra note___.

    My db entry for Griggs has "Griggs" filled in under short title and fn 3 should say Griggs supra note __
  • Dockets:

    I don't see a generic document number field. Is this something planned for the future?

    Not sure if this is responsive to your question but my main observation about docket numbers is that they are very messy and shouldn't be assigned any sort of unique identification role.

    (1) They are unique only within, not between, courts
    (2) A single docket number for a given case can be rendered in slightly different ways by different sources, like Lexis, westlaw etc.

    I l look at docket numbers as a kind of supplement to case name as a way of making sure I have the right document. It needs to be evaluated by a human in the context of all other information.
  • OOPS sorry, updated supra works fine. I forgot to restart after reinstalling -my bad :(

    Thanks!
  • New Bluebook is great, thanks to all involved.

    One small problem seems to be whole books
    (articles in books are fine). Books are showing up as both title and author in small caps. Think this should be author plain text, Title italics (or maybe title small caps but I think this is older)

    Thanks!
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