Bluebook law review/ backreferences- HELP

fbennett

@rintze: A search for "District Court" returns 16 pages of results. Try retrieving page 2 with a script.

I have something in place now that extracts the necessary data from the US Code, so the maintenance problem has been solved. Just a matter of working out what to do with it now ...

fbennett

Carl Malamud also pointed us at this, which provides the same information with a transparent URL scheme: http://openjurist.org/us-court

fbennett

A proposed list of urn:lex jurisdiction codes is now available for review. This list will provide fresh data for the Abbreviations Plugin and (in due course) a helper extension to the MLZ user interface.

fbennett

Updated abbreviation lists, supporting many words and phrases recommended by A Uniform System of Citation and expansion of the urn:lex jurisdiction codes for US Federal and state jurisdictions, are now available from CitationStylist.

fbennett

@Isis,

MLZ has seen quite a bit of tidying up in the last month, it might be worth a look again when you have time. I've added a pull-down menu for jurisdictions, so you no longer need to type in that finger-aching-awkward {:jurisdiction:us;federal;ak} stuff.

Cassandra2323

Hi Frank

Many thanks as always for your work. I have been using the new materials and have many questions, will take them one at a time.

First, the amlaw style sometimes seems to truncate titles after any punctuation, like a colon. Is there any way to change this ? If not I guess you can override each one individually in abbrevs, is that right?

Thanks

fbennett

What you are probably seeing is the Short Title field. In mainstream Zotero this is used when a title is requested in short form. A short-form request is also used to call the Abbreviation Filter, which gives rise to confusion.

I've just put up a fresh release of MLZ that ignores the Short Title field. Update MLZ and see if that straightens things up. You can still control the content of the title via the Abbreviation Filter.

I'm planning to use the Short Title field for a slightly different purpose -- to hold the "main title", so that we can distinguish main from subtitles. Disabling recognition of the field as the "short" form of the title is consistent with that, so if this works for you we'll make the change permanent.

Cassandra2323

You are right, I checked and it only happens when I have a short title. But I would rather not erase them all because they can be useful.In older Bluebook styles, the short titles were used for supras. Is there a way to do this with AmLaw style at present, full title first then short titles?

I did try to update MLZ to no effect on this issue. Is there any way I can be sure I have succeeded in updating? I cannot find a way of checking the release date of MLZ when I look at the Zotero interface

(similarly before I posted this I tried to check for new releases on the citation stylist website and could not figure out how to do so)

On a related matter, can MLZ be used with Standalone Zotero? I was unable to install it

Cassandra2323

@fbennett: A different problem.

I thought that last month I had gotten the Extra field for jurisdictions to work with your clever popup but now it does not

This is what the popup put in Extra

{:jurisdiction:us;federal;il.northern}

This is how the cite came out

Equal Emp’t Opportunity Comm’n v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 628 F.Supp. 1264 (us;federal;il.northern 1986).

Was there anything else I was supposed to do?

Many thanks

fbennett

Ah -- sorry, I set up to disable Short Title, then forgot to toggle the option in MLZ. Try updating again; I've put up a fresh release, and tested it in the word processor this time.

You can check the MLZ version via gear menu -> About Zotero (which should probably say "About MLZ", come to think of it).

The pace of new releases has slowed down, so it would make sense to announce them in the site's news feed. I'll start doing that going forward.

A Standalone version of MLZ isn't yet available. I have built trial versions for Linux, and it works, but I don't have the tools needed to build for all three supported platforms, so I haven't released it. It only needs someone to build the clients from the source archive.

fbennett

I thought that last month I had gotten the Extra field for jurisdictions to work with your clever popup but now it does not

There was a mismatch in the codes used for Federal district levels in the UI and in the abbreviation lists. The UI value is correct, and I've just now fixed the list values. If you fetch the Amlaw abbreviation list again and Import via the plugin abbrevs. popup with "override local entries" while using the Amlaw style, it should come right.

Cassandra2323

The first instance of cites now gives the full version, thanks. Is there any way to assign a short version for supras? I need to do this (1) when there are 2 articles by the same author first cited in a single footnote (2) for short form case citations.

The abbreviation list controls all instances, right, not just the first

fbennett

While testing these use cases, I discovered to my chagrin that the plugin was not saving abbreviations across sessions. I've fixed that now, and you can update the Abbreviation Filter (formerly Abbreviations for Zotero) to get the repaired version.

Item (1) should be covered automatically. If it doesn't work at your end, send along steps to reproduce and I'll take another look.

Item (2) is handled by the Hereinafter list in the Abbreviation Filter. If you set a name for a case there, it should turn up in subsequent references.

fbennett

In that last response I missed the need for short forms in back-references. This can be handled via Hereinafter as well. (There is a problem with the typeface for articles -- italics are missing. It's a small style issue that I'll fix up later today. Give me a push if you don't see an announcement of the update on the site within a day or so.)

Cassandra2323

(1) Reimported Amlaw abbreviation list, District Courts now working

(2)Circuit courts do not appear in the popup menu (didn't before either)Looking at the code I see that abbrevs for Circuit Courts are listed, but while Dist Courts seem to be places, Circuits are institutions. Does this mean that I should treat them differently or is the issue in the code?

fbennett

I'm still wavering over where to set the boundary between text input and the jurisdiction codes, as there are quite a few tribunals out there. An arbitrary line will need to be drawn at some point, but it should be one that is easily remembered. What is your intuition concerning the Circuits?

Cassandra2323

Am having more urgent problem right now -- Abbrevs function still misbehaving between sessions.

--If close down, then I open an existing document created in AmLaw,it asks me what style to use (doesn't seem to remember) and not only are old abbreviations gone, but when I select Journal full versions of journal names are not shown on the menu to give me the option to create new abbreviations.

--If I create a new document it works fine, at least within a session

As to Circuits -- I don' understand the issue, probably because I have not thought about enough different kinds of Courts. At the moment, how would I get the Circuit Court to show up in a parenthetical? If there is a way, I may be able tell you which I like better, that way or the way the District Court now works

fbennett

If close down, then I open an existing document created in AmLaw,it asks me what style to use (doesn't seem to remember) and not only are old abbreviations gone, but when I select Journal full versions of journal names are not shown on the menu to give me the option to create new abbreviations.

It sounds like the plugin is crashing on the document. Check the Firefox log at Tools -> Web Developer -> Error Console. There will be plenty of warnings listed, but anything relevant would be in boldface. It's unfortunately not possible to cut and paste from that listing, but a screenshot (http://imageshack.com works well) or a description will do, if there is anything suspicious. (If it looks clean, we can try generating a Debug ID and see if that turns up the cause.)

At the moment, how would I get the Circuit Court to show up in a parenthetical? If there is a way, I may be able tell you which I like better, that way or the way the District Court now works

If you enter the court name in the Court field, it should turn up in full form in the parenthetical. You would find its name in the abbrevs. listings under Institution Parts (I think).

fbennett

If close down, then I open an existing document created in AmLaw,it asks me what style to use (doesn't seem to remember) and not only are old abbreviations gone

I'll try following these steps and see if I can reproduce the fault here. I haven't tested against a saved document lately, this may just generally be in need of a fix.

fbennett

It does seem to be working against saved documents here. Will await debugging information.

Cassandra2323

I restarted and for now things are fine. I will follow your debugging instructions if it happens again.

The Court field does not show up in the parenthetical or anywhere else, and as I recall has never worked properly in any style of Bluebook. I had assumed that the purpose of your Extra material was to fix this, so I would assume that the Circuit and other court problems should be dealt with the same way, but perhaps there are issues I don't know about.

fbennett

Most likely you need to enter a jurisdiction value ("us") -- a jurisdiction value is required for all of the legal types. See the screenshot below for a sample entry.

The extra details that this throws up in the citation can be controlled through the Abbreviation Filter. Details will be in the text of the MLZ book, due out shortly.

http://imageshack.us/a/img41/1738/samplecase.png

Cassandra2323

Probably doing something silly, but can't get Hereinafter to work. It displays only one of the cases and small subset of the Titles (journals) in the document , not clear what the selection principle is. All but one had default titles only, no assigned short title. How do I get the ones I need to show up?

Cassandra2323

(1) I realize that it is better practice to say US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, but as a short run fix putting 7th Cir in the Court field and jurisdiction US in the extra field almost works as a temporary solution, except that the term U.S. appears the parenthetical

(U.S. 7th Cir. 1989)

Is there a workaround pending the final version?

(2) A sort of related problem. Suppose I have only one case cite in a document, and Extra contains

{:jurisdiction:us;federal;il.northern}

When I go to abbrevs, Journals and Reporters I get FOUR choices for FSupp, one labelled default, one us, one federal and one nd ill. I don't think this serves a purpose and it clutters the menu

Thanks!

fbennett

For (1), if the reporter is (say) F.3d in the database, set this in the Abbreviation Filter under Reporters & Journals:

!jurisdiction>>>F.3d

This will suppress the jurisdiction whenever that journal is used.

For (2), I take your point. I'd like to leave it as it stands for now, though, pending further (complaints and) suggestions from the field.

The entries differ in scope, so setting the abbreviation in "default" will apply it everywhere, regardless of jurisdiction, setting it in "us" applies it for all US sources but ignores it for secondary sources and other jurisdictions, etc. A simple solution would be to present only the most specific jurisdiction, but that would require separate fixes for every state or district.

A better approach might be to present the sublist in collapsed form, with a twisty that expands it for more detailed editing. There might be other approaches too, I'm open to suggestions.

Cassandra2323

The !jurisdiction>>>F.3d worked!! Thanks!!

If there is a good reason to want diff abbreviations, I understand. I assumed it was some sort of unintended byproduct.

Any ideas about the hereinafter problem (2 posts ago)?

fbennett

It could well be a glitch in the style or the processor -- the hereinafter variable hasn't been put under much pressure yet. Could you export a failing reference as Zotero RDF, paste the content to http://gist.github.com, save it as a "public gist" and post the URL from the address bar back here? That will help me figure out the fault, and a plan for fixing it.

fbennett

Ah -- reread your post. By "failing" we would mean an item that should turn up in the listing, but doesn't.

I'm pretty sure that this will be a style issue. If the Hereinafter variable is not tested for existence by an item, it won't make it into the list. Probably there are holes in the coverage, and that's causing items to drop out.

The way forward is the same -- if you can send me a sample item (or two) I can dig into the style and see what's missing.

Cassandra2323

One complication. For district court opinions, the parenthetical with date and court works right if there is nothing in the court field and I use the Extra menu. However, the Court field may one day be useful and I hate to erase the info in it.

Is the best workaround to just treat this as a Circuit Court opinion as discussed above? But that of course deprives us of all your work in the Extra menu.

fbennett

It should just ignore the Court field when a U.S. District Court is selected from the menu. The style can be made to do so, if it's not. Just post the item if you run into something that looks problematic.

It wouldn't take much to add the Circuit Courts to the menu, if that would be convenient and less confusing.