Citation within summary or note

AteTheSputnik
Hello,

I would like to know whether there is the possibility to include a citation within an abstract or a note.
Currently I work on a literature list and I want to mark citations I use within the publication's abstract. So I would like to have footnotes or likewise to mark whether I cited the publication itself, a website, etc.

Looking forward to hearing some good ideas,

Fabs

Example:
I would like the abstract field or a note to look basically like this, just with the respective rich text formatting (supescript of '[4]').
__
The case was dismissed on June 4, 2009 due to a lack of juris­dic­tion.[4]

[4] Takats, Sean (2009-06-04). "Thomson Reuters Lawsuit Dismissed". The Quintessence of Ham. http://quintessenceofham.org/2009/06/04/thomson-reuters-lawsuit-dismissed/. Retrieved 2009-06-04. {where this should be retourned by zotero from it's entry in my database}
__
(Quoted from wikipedia)
  • adamsmith
    sorry, I'm still a bit confused what you would like to do. What part do you consider the "summary field" in your example above?
  • AteTheSputnik
    Sorry, I mean the Abstract Field, not summary. I'll correct this in my original text.
  • adamsmith
    sorry, I still don't follow.
    Do you want to insert a citation using Zotero that includes the abstract?
    Do you want to have formatted data in the abstract field in Zotero? (and if so, what do you mean by "footnotes"?

    If you find this easier to explain in Spanish/Italian/Portguese that'll work, too.
  • AteTheSputnik
    Well, thanks for the offer, but Spanish would only confuse me.

    Actually you came closer to the essence, it’s just the order of your words that should be twisted around: I want to write an abstract to a publication in Zotero. In this abstract I want to include quote with its reference, (using footnote or endnote similar to Word’s function). I want to write the abstract to publication A in which I include a citation. This citation might link to a publication B that has written about publication A and I want to quote what they stated.

    Here would be an example abstract:

    --------Start of Abstract of Publication A

    This publication explores the technical possibilities to detect (…) at various distances. It also gives examples on several different measurement systems and touches on the issue of evasion i.e. by shielding. From simple back of the envelope calculations it is shown, that “in the absence of shielding, (…) can be detected by neutron or gamma counters at a distance of tens of meters” [1] Finally, the author concludes that such techniques will be available for standard users within the next ten years.

    [1] Hansen, L. “A Comparison of the Shielding Performances of the AT-400A, Model FL and Model AL-R8 Containers.” UCRL-JC-120849 (1995). [Publ. B.]

    ----- End of Abstract

    Now I know, that right now the abstract field doesn’t support paragraphs, which will be important here, too. I wouldn’t mind using a subnote to my publication instead of the abstract field. Anyhow the problem remains that I want to use these citations internally.

    I found a way to work around it, but it is not really satisfying. I could write the abstract of publication A in word and insert citations with the zotero plug-in, later copy it to a subnote of zotero. It’s better than nothing, but I would really like to know whether there is no build-in function. This would also help, as once I copied the text from word to the subnote, of course I will not update, even if I change/correct something in the initial citation (here Hansen,L ., A comparison of the shielding, Publ. B).

    I hope it is clearer now, because I don’t think I can describe it in many other words. If the feature I ask for does not exist yet, I would strongly encourage its implementation. Just in case I added another paragraph about it. This one however I know might be a little confusing, so I put it here at the end.
    __

    If there is no such a feature yet, there is one more issue I assume it is worth thinking about. As I said, I want to write the abstract to publication A in which I include a citation. The citation now more often than not, would not only link to a different publication B, instead I want to use a quote of my publication A in its own abstract. So for A, the publication’s abstract could contain a citation of A.

    In order not to create a loop, this abstract should not be allowed to contain information of the panel I edit at that point of time. So if I write in the abstract panel, it could contain inter alia the author’s and the publication’s name (but not the abstract –ok, in real life it rarely does so for a citation). If I write the abstract of a publication in a subnote to it, however it should be able to contain all information in a citation, as no loops can be created.
  • adamsmith
    so you want to include live citations in abstracts in the Zotero data. That's not possible - and I don't see it happening, to be honest - there are a lot of technical issues involved (starting with the fact that the abstract field is plain text so you can't just embed citation data like in Word).
    If you do want to connect references with each other, use the "Related" function.
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