MLZ

taragaby

I am new to Zotero. I tried adding a citation in word 2008 (mac) using MLZ and Oscola as referencing style and although the case ref has the year, this is what i got:
‘Doodeward v Spence’ (no date) 406 6 (note)
I selected the right referencing style, so I don't know what I am doing wrong..PLS advise?

Also, I am a bit confused about using MLZ. Is MLZ web use only? I am ok with that, but then should I go ahead and delete the stand-alone - or can you sync the two?
(I am importing from Endnote, so data is safe in Endnote at the moment)
If I keep the Standalone Zotero, how do I know which database my word plug-in is using? Apologies if questions appear daft

fbennett

With MLZ, use the MLZ Oscola style at http://citationstylist.org/tools.

The discrepancy in date handling is a little annoying when first encountered, but there is logic behind it. A published court judgement might have two dates -- a date of decision and a date of publication. Both may be used in a citation, and the two sometimes differ. Zotero assigns the "Decision Date" field on the Case type to the citation processor's "issued" date. There is no field for the publication date. This leads to problems.

For logical consistency (which is important, over the long term), in the MLZ citation styles I've set "Decision Date" field to map to the citation processor's "original-date" variable, with the (optional) date of publication set on the "issued" variable. The difference in assignments is what gives you the error in the Oscola style from the main CSL repo. If you use the MLZ Oscola style, the date assignments will match up, and citations will come out correctly.

MLZ is only available for Firefox at the moment. If someone can help with packaging it for Mac and Windows, it could be released in a Standalone version; but for now, only a Firefox version is available. MLZ is database-compatible with official Zotero, so you can run both -- but when generating citations with an MLZ style, you should use MLZ, for the reasons given above.

taragaby

Thanks fbennett. I really appreciate you doing this..
Done this so far
1. reinstalled the plug-in and restarted word.
2. confirmed 'set document preferences' is MLZ Oscola
3. firefox running in background with Zotero web open
4. checked the case on web zotero and case field decided 1908
5. Click 'insert citation' on word plug in
6. ‘Dobson & Ors v North Tyneside Health Authority & Anor’ [no date] (note)

I feel my word must be linking to the wrong database..i don't know what I am doing wrong.. really appreciate your advise

taragaby

Fbennett, I must be in the right database online as when in firefox, and with Zotero open I can see 'Multilingual testing only' in blue on the right size of the library...

fbennett

By "Zotero web" do you mean Standalone? If so, try closing it completely.

taragaby

Sorry I meant to say MLZ Oscola in Firefox. Standalone is shut down.

I just tested again, I only get the problem with cases - I created a new case and got the same problem. I entered in the following fields
Item Type - Case (selected from options)
Case Name - X v Y
Reporter - All ER
Court - HL
Date Decided - 1998

Citation - ‘X v Y’ [no date] All ER (note)

Yet journal article formats - ‘Moore v Regents of University of California’ (no date) 51 Cal.3d 120 (note)Susan MC Gibbons, ‘Law and the Human Body: Property Rights, Ownership and Control’ (2008) 16 Medical Law Review 305

Thank you again.

taragaby

And you can see even with the journal article the citation lists the date twice - once with no date

fbennett

Ah. Use right-click on the Extra field, and set the jurisdiction for the case to United Kingdom. Sorry, I should have spotted this one earlier.

Legal types require a "jurisdiction" setting because legal cite forms vary across national boundaries. The requirement is unavoidable, but we need a more graceful and informative form of failure; the system itself should provide information about the requirement, it shouldn't just throw bad cites. I'll give this one some thought.

I'm not sure what to make of your second example above. That looks like a cut-and-paste of two separate citations, one a broken case site (the jurisdiction thing), followed by an OSCOLA-correct journal article cite.

taragaby

Thanks fbennett..it works :)

With the second example (the journal article citation) , I'll look at that again, as I used endnote for those and often imported references.

RE. Case citations. I agree, there should be a linking, once you have entered where reported eg, All ER (All England Law Reports), Jurisdiction should be automatically selected. I do think that where reported is a better field to do the linking, rather than Court name eg. High Court, as many countries may have the same court names. (This may be obvious to you, apologies)

My next question is if I have a document with citations already from endnote - is there any way I can change the formatting to Oscola using FLZ?

Also, is there a way to see FLZ full screen in Firefox?
Thanks again

taragaby

In my question above, My document is a word doc (mac 2008)

adamsmith

My next question is if I have a document with citations already from endnote - is there any way I can change the formatting to Oscola using FLZ?

no. you'll have to replace them one by one.

taragaby

I thought you might say that - thanks adamsmith

taragaby

What is the best way to create a bibliography from all the items in a group? Ie. I need to create a bibliography which includes items that are not in my citations

Also with regards to RE. Case citation jurisdictions linking to where reported - my earlier suggestion is flawed, as you may not want/need the reporter field - so maybe another might be to be able to select a default country (eg. the majority of my cases are English Law, so would be good t have thejurisdiction field pre-filled with my default country - which of course I can change in the field itself if I am adding a case from another jursidiction.

adamsmith

What is the best way to create a bibliography from all the items in a group? Ie. I need to create a bibliography which includes items that are not in my citations

That depends on the exact use case:
If you just want a bibliography with all items from a group*, go the the top level of the group in zotero (i.e. click on the brown box followed by the group name) - this will display all items in the group.
Then select them all (cmd+a on a mac) in the middle panel, right-click (or ctrl+click) and "Create Bibliography from selected items".

If you just want to add items to an existing bibliography using the word plugin, you can also use the "edit bibliography" button in the plugin and add them one by one.

*this assumes you actually mean group and not collection. For a collection the same idea applies, but if you have subcollections, you may have to enable recursive collections:
http://www.zotero.org/support/preferences/hidden_preferences#general_preferences

fbennett

... would be good to have the jurisdiction field pre-filled with my default country - which of course I can change in the field itself if I am adding a case from another jursidiction.

That's a good suggestion. We either provide for a default jurisdiction setting, or make the setting sticky and repeat the last as the default (using, say, "us" as the initial default). Which behaviour would be more convenient?

fbennett

Or we could do both -- repeat the last by default, but provide a means of setting a fixed initial value. The fixed-jurisdiction toggle could be offered in the popup dialog, which should be pretty self-explanatory.

taragaby

@fbennett, Thank you.

Sticky setting - by the time one realises this happens - or even understands - user will be flustered, especially if trying to insert only a handful of cases

Maybe defaulting is the best option - but has flaws too, For eg I am currently citing US and Australian cases (although this is less common). But for this to be the better option, I think you need a seperate field called Jurisdiction and for that field to be higher up on the Item Info, as often you don't scroll all the way down when inserting a new Item.

taragaby

@adamsmith, Thank you
Great - it works. Sorry, the bibliography I have is in a 'collection'
But..is there a way I can make a list of cases in a 'collection' also?

I just don't get it - "i hate technology" is my moto and here I am...

adamsmith

if you click on the little table icon at the top right of the middle panel, you can add "Type" as a sort column. If you click on that column, items will be sorted by type and you get all cases in one place.
You can also do an advanced search for Item Type = Case, but for what you want that seems to be more complicated.

fbennett

This will be a little painful to implement, but you're right. I've tried to keep the layout of the UI as close as I could to official Zotero, with the idea that the field layout will clean up when the Jurisdiction material is eventually merged. That might take quite awhile, though, and there is a book on MLZ in the works, so if I'm going to spoof these supplementary fields into the UI, it should happen now rather than later. I'll try to work up a solution over the next couple of weeks.

taragaby

@FB :) I also like your " The fixed-jurisdiction toggle could be offered in the popup dialog, which should be pretty self-explanatory"

fbennett

Once I get a cleaner field layout in place, we can revisit the UI strategy. Things that look awkward with the field in its current nearly-invisible location might seem less bad when the current setting is more prominent.

taragaby

@ AS, Thks ..that's really helpful...
I got this - one case listed fine in the Bibliography - but the others not

‘York v. Jones’ (1989) 717 Federal supplement 421.
[forthcoming: to use oscola-bib-case macro].
[forthcoming: to use oscola-bib-case macro].
[forthcoming: to use oscola-bib-case macro].

Also, it would be really cool if you could set up the option to say 'Create Legislation and Case List and Bibliography' - not sure though - just want to run it by you - it's just taht when you write a paper you usually cite the 'Legislation and Cases' and then the 'Bibliography', which then lists all the secondary material

taragaby

@fb - like I said - 'I hate technology!!'

btw - re. posting comments - how do you select a portion of somebody else's comment - and put it in a box - when you reply..is it possible for me or just for you privileged folk?

taragaby

@AS..other than the cases - the journals listed fine in the bibliography

fbennett

I'll fix the bibliography forms in the styles over the next couple of weeks as well.

To quote text, just enclose it in <blockquote></blockquote> tags (manually).

fbennett

That Fed. Supp. cite form will need to be fixed in the style as well, I see.

taragaby

Thanks fbennett.
Do you know why I am getting the legal cases not citing correctly in the bibliography at all?

Also,FYI when you do your fixes, the last item below is a legislation - it's not listing correctly, as when creating a Legislation and cases list, legislation should be at the top.

[forthcoming: to use oscola-bib-case macro].
[forthcoming: to use oscola-bib-case macro].
‘Human Tissue Act 2004’ (first published 2004, no date).

fbennett

Tables of cases and tables of statutes will not be implemented unless partial bibliographies are implemented in official Zotero. As far as I know there is no immediate plan for that. You'll have to insert them manually by generating a bibliography from a collection.

The "forthcoming" cite forms are a placeholder, because the style code for those bibliography entries are not in place yet for cases from the UK. When I get to this work, I'll also sort out the issues with that statutory references. It's just not using the correct style code. Bear with me for a couple of weeks.

adamsmith

(it's not very hard to code sorting by item type into a style, though - see e.g. the instructions here: http://blogs.eui.eu/zotero/sort-a-bibliography-by-type.html )

taragaby

Thanks to both.

I have this problem which is more immediate. I cant seem to list teh cases in the bibliography correctly
[forthcoming: to use oscola-bib-case macro].
[forthcoming: to use oscola-bib-case macro].
[forthcoming: to use oscola-bib-case macro].
[forthcoming: to use oscola-bib-case macro].