Upgrade StorageIEEE style / referencing system and Zotero comments
Hello Zotero People!
I just installed Zotero today and after watching a number of the tutorials on the webpage, I decided to convert my thesis over from EndNote's referencing system. I like a number of the features that Zotero has to offer. I have however found a few problems with the IEEE referencing system and a couple minor bugs. I really like what Zotero has done so I offer this as constructive criticism and not as a grumpy nitpicky user hahaha I will be continuing to use Zotero! :)
To start, I am running Windows Vista x64 with FireFox version 3 release candidate 2. I installed version 1.0.4 of Zotero and I have the Word add-in version 1.0b3 running with MS Office 2007. I’ll list the few problems I found with the IEEE style followed by a few things I found with Zotero.
1. The in text citations should have a space after the comma when listing more than one citation. Eg. Zotero produces --> [1,5,10] when it should be [1, 5, 10]
2. When I add multiple sources for one citing instance, ie. [1, 5, 10], Zotero seems to sort the references depending on the article title. I think they should be sorted using the first author’s last name instead. Also, during this sorting process, Zotero does not check to see if one of those references has been cited earlier in the text and sort the multiple source citing correctly. What happens is that the entire citing is sorted purely on the article title so I end up with a citing that looks like this [5,10,1] because the article title for source [1] starts with a 'W' and the titles for the sources [5] and [10] start with 'A' and 'C' respectively. I did find a workaround for this though. What I have been doing is un-checking the “Keep sources sorted” button (after I click on the “Zotero Insert Citation” button) to cite the articles in the order that I add them to the right side of the citation pane. I just have to make sure I add my articles in the correct order to get the numbering to work out properly.
3. On the same note, it would be nice to have that “Keep sources sorted” button remember what state it was in the last time I entered a reference. Each time I entered a multiple source citation, I had to uncheck that box.
4. Once Zotero makes the list of references or bibliography, the indents are a little off for the first 9 references. References 1 – 9 require an extra space to line up the first line of the source with the remainder of the lines. Hahaha doesn’t sound like that makes much sense, I’ll try to illustrate this below.
[9] P. Au, “A Heat Treatment Procedure to Produce Fine-Grained Lamellar
Microstructures in a P/M Titanium Aluminide Alloy,” 1997.
[10] M. Beschliesser et al., “Designed Fully Lamellar Microstructures in a
Gamma-TiAl Based Alloy: Adjustment and Microstructural Changes Upon
Long-Term Isothermal Exposure at 700 and 800 C,” Materials Science and
Engineering A, 2002, pp. 124-129.
The easiest way to explain it I guess is that source [9] just needs an extra space before the authors name so that the first line will line up vertically with the edge of the following lines. It seems to be fine for all the other sources with two digits. I have not however checked what happens once you reach 100 references. Again this problem is easily fixed by adjusting the indent in Word but I have to change it each time the list of references is regenerated.
Thats it for any of the minor problems with the IEEE style. I have found a couple suggestions for Zotero itself that I will list off.
1. When I click the “Zotero Insert Citation” button, the window that pops up is not resizable or moveable. It would be fantastic to be able to resize this window manually as well as move it out of the way of where you are currently working. I found that I could click and drag the window to a new location but the window wouldn’t actually move until I closed it and clicked on the “Zotero Insert Citation” button again. Kind of strange haha
2. A preview pane in the window that pops up after clicking on the “Zotero Insert Citation” button would be nice. The preview pane could show what the formatted citation would look like in the bibliography, this way you could tweak the formatting before entering it into the document. I found it was a little tedious to have to regenerate the entire list of references just to see what effect a small change I have made in 1 reference will do.
3. A button to insert the last citation used would also be handy. Sometime I cite the same source in a couple of instances and it would be nice to just click an “insert last” button or something instead of having to open the main window again.
I have one more random bug. I am not sure if it’s from Word or Zotero but I’ll mention it anyway. I have a few citations in the caption of different figures. The formatting is slightly different from my main text, the font size is 11 pt. and bold compared to my main text which is font size 12 pt. and not bold. Each time I refresh the bibliography, Zotero changes my citation to 12 pt. font instead of leaving it at 11 pt. For some reason it only does it on my first in caption citation though. The rest all seem to remain at 11 pt. font.
That wraps up all my comments. Thanks for listening and keep up the good work on Zotero! I think all the features this program has rivals EndNote in most, if not all its aspects.
I just installed Zotero today and after watching a number of the tutorials on the webpage, I decided to convert my thesis over from EndNote's referencing system. I like a number of the features that Zotero has to offer. I have however found a few problems with the IEEE referencing system and a couple minor bugs. I really like what Zotero has done so I offer this as constructive criticism and not as a grumpy nitpicky user hahaha I will be continuing to use Zotero! :)
To start, I am running Windows Vista x64 with FireFox version 3 release candidate 2. I installed version 1.0.4 of Zotero and I have the Word add-in version 1.0b3 running with MS Office 2007. I’ll list the few problems I found with the IEEE style followed by a few things I found with Zotero.
1. The in text citations should have a space after the comma when listing more than one citation. Eg. Zotero produces --> [1,5,10] when it should be [1, 5, 10]
2. When I add multiple sources for one citing instance, ie. [1, 5, 10], Zotero seems to sort the references depending on the article title. I think they should be sorted using the first author’s last name instead. Also, during this sorting process, Zotero does not check to see if one of those references has been cited earlier in the text and sort the multiple source citing correctly. What happens is that the entire citing is sorted purely on the article title so I end up with a citing that looks like this [5,10,1] because the article title for source [1] starts with a 'W' and the titles for the sources [5] and [10] start with 'A' and 'C' respectively. I did find a workaround for this though. What I have been doing is un-checking the “Keep sources sorted” button (after I click on the “Zotero Insert Citation” button) to cite the articles in the order that I add them to the right side of the citation pane. I just have to make sure I add my articles in the correct order to get the numbering to work out properly.
3. On the same note, it would be nice to have that “Keep sources sorted” button remember what state it was in the last time I entered a reference. Each time I entered a multiple source citation, I had to uncheck that box.
4. Once Zotero makes the list of references or bibliography, the indents are a little off for the first 9 references. References 1 – 9 require an extra space to line up the first line of the source with the remainder of the lines. Hahaha doesn’t sound like that makes much sense, I’ll try to illustrate this below.
[9] P. Au, “A Heat Treatment Procedure to Produce Fine-Grained Lamellar
Microstructures in a P/M Titanium Aluminide Alloy,” 1997.
[10] M. Beschliesser et al., “Designed Fully Lamellar Microstructures in a
Gamma-TiAl Based Alloy: Adjustment and Microstructural Changes Upon
Long-Term Isothermal Exposure at 700 and 800 C,” Materials Science and
Engineering A, 2002, pp. 124-129.
The easiest way to explain it I guess is that source [9] just needs an extra space before the authors name so that the first line will line up vertically with the edge of the following lines. It seems to be fine for all the other sources with two digits. I have not however checked what happens once you reach 100 references. Again this problem is easily fixed by adjusting the indent in Word but I have to change it each time the list of references is regenerated.
Thats it for any of the minor problems with the IEEE style. I have found a couple suggestions for Zotero itself that I will list off.
1. When I click the “Zotero Insert Citation” button, the window that pops up is not resizable or moveable. It would be fantastic to be able to resize this window manually as well as move it out of the way of where you are currently working. I found that I could click and drag the window to a new location but the window wouldn’t actually move until I closed it and clicked on the “Zotero Insert Citation” button again. Kind of strange haha
2. A preview pane in the window that pops up after clicking on the “Zotero Insert Citation” button would be nice. The preview pane could show what the formatted citation would look like in the bibliography, this way you could tweak the formatting before entering it into the document. I found it was a little tedious to have to regenerate the entire list of references just to see what effect a small change I have made in 1 reference will do.
3. A button to insert the last citation used would also be handy. Sometime I cite the same source in a couple of instances and it would be nice to just click an “insert last” button or something instead of having to open the main window again.
I have one more random bug. I am not sure if it’s from Word or Zotero but I’ll mention it anyway. I have a few citations in the caption of different figures. The formatting is slightly different from my main text, the font size is 11 pt. and bold compared to my main text which is font size 12 pt. and not bold. Each time I refresh the bibliography, Zotero changes my citation to 12 pt. font instead of leaving it at 11 pt. For some reason it only does it on my first in caption citation though. The rest all seem to remain at 11 pt. font.
That wraps up all my comments. Thanks for listening and keep up the good work on Zotero! I think all the features this program has rivals EndNote in most, if not all its aspects.
Number citations consecutively in square brackets [1]. The sentence punctuation follows the brackets [2]. Multiple references [2], [3] are each numbered with separate brackets [1]–[3]. When citing a section in a book, please give the relevant page numbers [2]. In sentences, refer simply to the reference number, as in [3]. Do not use “Ref. [3]” or “reference [3]” except at the beginning of a sentence: “Reference [3] shows ... .” Please do not use automatic endnotes in Word, rather, type the reference list at the end of the paper using the “References” style.,
So, multiple citations must appear like [1]-[5] and never like [1-5].
This is a bug of Zotero?
1. doi should not be shown
2. "et al" should be shown only for more that 6 authors
Is there anyone that could help with this?
Thanks
http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs_iportals/iportals/publications/authors/transjnl/stylemanual.pdf
On page 5:
for citations, "Use et al. when three or more names are given."
for the bibliography, "If there are many names, use them all; use et al. only if names are not given."
The inclusion of doi-links isn't specified as far as I can see (the guide only says "If there is a URL included with the print reference, it can be included at the end of the reference.", but I don't think they had doi's in mind there).
L.
I've been using zetero for a while now, and figure its about time I work out how to make websites display as I would like them too in the bibliography. I've noticed that they don't display the URL which I understand is now acceptable (and preferable) in my case. Also I would like to grab the last updated date for the website directly from the html on the website and display that too. Perhaps even a last accessed date... How do I go about making these changes... I downloaded the ieee.csl file but I can't see anything relating to websites there... any suggestions on where to look and what exactly to change.
Thanks in advance,
Nathan
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4884/doi-reference-in-apastyle/#Item_4
<else-if type="thesis">
... just leave this ...
</else-if>
<else-if type="webpage">
(CSL code to get desired layout for websites)
</else-if>
It's not the prettiest solution (it results in a lot of redundancy, and CSL offers more concise ways to code styles), but this is probably the easiest approach.
You can take out the 'collapse="citation-number" option in the style, that way you'll get
[1-5] but also [1,3].
Does anyone know whether this is an intentional change?
I'll take a look. Thanks for noticing & reporting.
I do not understand how this ever worked correctly - the style hasn't been changed in a relevant way in the last two years. The processor behavior must have changed, but the current behavior is clearly correct, so I adjusted the style accordingly.
see e.g. http://www.zotero.org/styles/ieee?source=1
For maintenance purposes that's very convenient, as updating correctly formatted timestamps manually is a pain.
If that doesn't work with the way Mendeley (that's you, right?) is using the repository, bring this up on xbiblio and we can think about another solution.
@robertknight: there is a long discussion on xbiblio-devel about automatically updating the timestamps: http://xbiblio-devel.2463403.n2.nabble.com/new-zotero-styles-page-td6363622i20.html#a6366073
I am afraid @adamsmith is not right regarding your problem about changing "[1]-[4]" to "[1-4]".
One way to do this correctly is to edit the CSL(http://citationstyles.org/) file yourself. Here is how:
1. Download the IEEE citation style: http://zotero.org/styles/ieee
2. In the IEEE CSL file, find the citation node which looks like this:
"
<!-- Citation -->
<citation collapse="citation-number">
<sort>
<key variable="citation-number"/>
</sort>
<layout delimiter=", ">
<group prefix="[" suffix="]" delimiter=", ">
<text variable="citation-number"/>
<text macro="citation-locator"/>
</group>
</layout>
</citation>
"
Change this section with the following code:
"
<!-- Citation -->
<citation collapse="citation-number">
<sort>
<key variable="citation-number"/>
</sort>
<layout prefix="[" suffix="]" delimiter=", ">
<text variable="citation-number"/>
</layout>
</citation>
"
3. Save this modification and install it with Zotero. See section “Change the Style Title and ID” in this post: http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step
4. Restart Zotero and MS Word, and apply the new citation style.
5. Wait for magic.