Editing Existing Referencing Styles

fusion809

The Vancouver Style referencing that Zotero has in its database is almost exactly what I need for University but there are some differences. Is there anyway to get Zotero to automatically make the corrections I need and collect the appropriate additional information, for these corrections, from its Chrome plug-in?

What I am looking for as an answer is something I can easily implement (I have no past training in programming, or other IT subjects aside from a 10th grade IT subject and knowledge of the numerical analysis software, MATLAB) and if not, for someone to guide me through it step by step in a way I am likely to understand.

adamsmith

no, there is no way to do this automatically. See here for editing styles
http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

fusion809

Well I noticed some Vancouver Referencing Styles at http://www.zotero.org/styles that match what I want. How do I get Zotero to use them?

adamsmith

http://www.zotero.org/support/styles#installing_additional_styles

fusion809

What do I need to do to get it to include, "Available from: website"? I have tried changing referencing styles (not just between Vancouver styles either, I have tried the National Library of Medicine and APA styles too and I have checked that each do have URLs for journal articles available online), I have tried adding URLs to the "Info" section of references.

adamsmith

by default, Zotero won't print URLs for articles with page ranges (and Vancouver/NLM doesn't require it). But if you want them, check the "Include URLs" box in the Cite-->Styles tab of the Zotero preferences.

fusion809

I have a two additional questions.

1. I have ticked the "Include URLs" in the Cite-->Styles tab and while it did include the website a few times it is no longer for some reason. How do I correct this?

2. Why is it that one of my references included an additional F in an Author's initials when citing in Vancouver, that was not found on the Pubmed page of the article (and yes this F was included under the "Info" for the reference in Zotero)?

adamsmith

1. no idea, double-check it's still checked and try some different citation styles, for a few (though not many) styles, we add URLs only for webpages.

2. Probably the additional initials are in Pubmeds metadata - if you post a pubmed ID I can check to confirm

fusion809

PMID: 19462162; The name is Wong EH

adamsmith

yep. Check the full name of the author in the Pubmed metadata: it's Erik H. F. Wong: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19462162?report=xml&format=text