How to obtain the frequency of cited authors in a specific document?

cadudesun
Hi,

When writing a specific document (using MSWord), it is useful to see the frequency of cited authors. I.e. Author A (3 times) / Author B (7 times) / Author C (1 time).

Is Zotero able to show this kind of author frequency usage? How to obtain this information?

Thanks in advance,
Cadu
  • adamsmith
    not currently, no. Since the citation data is embedded by default since Zotero 3.0 it probably wouldn't be too hard to find that out - or even write a little script that does - but I have my doubt if Zotero devs are going to be very motivated to implement that themselves.
  • dstillman
    But when there are virtual document collections, planned for 3.5, you'll be able to sort by creator.
  • cadudesun
    Often I used this "frequency resource" in EndNote. And it is very useful to analyze in depth a thesis author structure, or even when one need to shorten a paper (removing the less cited authors).

    Anyway, once I changed from EndNote to Zotero, let me deal with this other one! As a Zotero newbie, I need to say: ZOTERO is great, amazing tool (EndNote never more)!!! And this "frequency resource" seems to me a lack.

    As adamsmith mentioned: "Since the citation data is embedded by default since Zotero 3.0 it probably wouldn't be too hard to find that out - or even write a little script that does".

    So, may someone tell me how to obtain the "author's frequency" in an specific document without Zotero? At least give me an idea about what to look for... Is there any MSWord way to deal with? And about scrip?

    Thanks in advance,
    Cadu
  • adamsmith
    but unless I'm misunderstanding how that's going to work you won't be able to count how many times a single work by an author is cited that way, right?
    I.e. if I'm going to cite Wealth of Nations 15 times in one article, virtual document collections won't display that.
  • dstillman
    Oh, sorry—you're right.
  • adamsmith
    Zotero 3.0 embeds citation data in the MS Word Fields in JSON - my naive way of going about this would be to simply search the Word fields with a VBS script or so and count how many times any given author comes up.
    I've never written scripts for Word, so I can't provide any more details.
  • cadudesun
    I am trying to find out some solution through MSWord, but even it be possible, it will be achievable just by advanced users.

    Maybe this "author's frequency" could be improved in future releases, considering an extension of features of the "edit bibliography" in Word plugin.

    Once the bibliography was created, when editing would be useful to have a "frequency" idea. As suggestion, it already exists the field "references in bibliography"; this frequency feature could be an extension of this field in some way.

    Best, Cadu
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