Hebrew law review citation format

roypeled

I'm using zotero (which is awesome, btw) for a law review article that involved hebrew and english ciations. Now, Zotero does a better job on the hebrew citations than any other similar tool, but there are still some problems. part I think is related to right-to-left writing (I'm not sure, not very tech-savvy), for instance where brackets come out left-side-right (XXX( instead of (XXX). The other part, which Im guessing is (maybe?) easier, has to do with the citation format. For instance, last names come out before first names and with no space between them. Any chance any of this can be fixed?

fbennett

The name formatting issue has been fixed in the latest citation processor version. While waiting for the next Zotero update, you can use the new processor version by installing this plugin.

I'm not sure about the brackets issue. Only one bracket comes out bad-reversed?

roypeled

Yes, it seems only one comes out reversed. Thanks for the tip re the plugin.

Another Q, I think the Bluebook requires that a dot come after the middle initial of a book author, but zotero doesn't add one. Any fix for that?

roypeled

Sorry, another question - is this plugin supposed to work with Zotero standalone for mac? I"m using zotero both on a macbook and a windows desktop. Thanks again, Roy

fbennett

For the initials issue, it sounds like an initialize-with="." attribute is missing on a cs:name node somewhere in the style. The repository Bluebook style isn't very actively maintained, but you can fix it up yourself. There is guidance here.

The plugin should work with standalone. If it wouldn't install before, you might give it another go; I've just extended to version compatibility flag to include the latest Firefox release version.

For the brackets issue, if you export an item affected by this as Zotero RDF, paste the code to http://gist.github.com, and post the URL back here, I can take a look -- if I can reproduce the problem, I can probably fix it.

roypeled

I never tried this. Willing to try but am afraid of creating a mess. This is what I found that seems relevant -
" <macro name="bb-author">
<names variable="author">
<name and="symbol" delimiter-precedes-last="never" />
</names>
</macro>
<macro name="bb-author-short">
<names variable="author">
<name form="short" and="symbol" delimiter-precedes-last="never" initialize-with="."/>
<substitute>
<text variable="title" form="short"/>
</substitute>
</names>
</macro>
"
Anything missing there? And you might notice I raised another question in a separate thread about having the publisher appear for pre 1900 books. That sounds like a tricker one, making it conditional on the year of publication, is that also something I can attempt to do myself?

fbennett

That looks like it should be applying the initial correctly. Is the input a bare initial with no period, or a full name that is reduced to initials when the citation is produced? I don't think the processor will attempt to fix things up in the former case.

fbennett

I think I have a handle on how the parens problem can be controlled. I'll need sample data to test a solution. When you have time to put that together, I'll take a look.

roypeled

Initials - I'm referring to items that were grabbed from the net using the identifier, and looking at it now I see they just have the initial in the last name field, following the last name itself. i.e. a book by Owen M. Fiss, has "Owen" in first name and "Fiss M" in last.

parens - do you mean I should export one data item to you? how do I Send it to you?

fbennett

Understood about the initials issue. For parens, yes, I need the data from an item that is producing bad output (as well as a pointer to the style).

For the brackets issue, if you export an item affected by this as Zotero RDF, paste the code to http://gist.github.com, and post the URL back here, I can take a look -- if I can reproduce the problem, I can probably fix it.

roypeled

And sorry to be such a nagger, but I can't open the plugin you suggested to my winxp desktop. I don't use FF, but Chrome with a Zotero extension. Isn't xpi just for FF? Thanks again for all your responses, Roy

roypeled

This is the gist URL -
git://gist.github.com/3207664.git

I put two files there - one the exported file and the other is the citation as it should appear according to the official Israeli equivalent of the Bluebook.

roypeled

And I think I stumbled upon another problem with the style - for book names it uses small caps, as it should, but doesn't capitalize the beginning of each word, as it should.

The style I'm referring to is Bluebook 19th edition

fbennett

On the parens issue, it looks as though you are wanting citations in Hebrew to have a dominant RTL text direction.

Is this true of the entire bibliography, or should the dominant text direction of cites (as opposed to the directionality of their sub-units such as title etc) switch according to their primary language?

fbennett

To clarify, the misplaced parens in your example will come out correctly if the dominant text direction is made RTL for the full run of text. However, forcing this across the board for the style would cause LTR cites (a Bluebook reference to a US case, for example) to suffer similar corruption.

Forcing RTL on cites that are cast entirely in Hebrew will solve the ordering issue, but if the word processor is running with an LTR locale, cites will be left-aligned, but with the text ordered correctly within the RTL run. I'm not sure this would be correct typography in your context. If you can put up a screenshot of a correctly formatted bibliography on http://imageshack.us/, we can start working on how it would be produced.

Given your requirements, you should probably take a look at Multilingual Zotero (MLZ), which has an American Law Style (the name aims to avoid silly charges of trademark infringement, but it implements the familiar rules). MLZ is available only as a Firefox plugin, but it would give you greater flexibility with mixed text, and I am able to make tweaks and changes to the MLZ client if that proves necessary.

roypeled

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/225/roypeledscreen.jpg/

This is the link for the screenshot. I am currently writing the text in Hebrew though most of my citations are from English sources.

I really like the standalone. and I use chrome, haven't used FF in a while. IF I do use MLZ, will the MS Word add-in still work?

fbennett

It seems odd that the note numbers jump across the page depending on the entry. Is that a style requirement, or is it just the formatting that Word happens to apply when the first character of a note is from an RTL character set? Personally, it would seem more readable to me to keep note numbers consistently aligned on the left (or on the right, depending on the dominant direction of the document), and switch direction only within the citation. But it would depend on publishing conventions for mixed-text documents.

Zotero for Firefox can be run in server mode (guidance notes here), which makes it operate in the same way as Standalone, handling items captured via a Chrome or Safari connector. MLZ is compatible with the standard Zotero word processor add-ins, so there would be no change there.