Abbreviating titles in 2nd citations

Frith Hooton

I wondered if anyone else had encountered this problem. I am editing a thesis for a Theology student, and the student wishes to use abbreviated titles in his references.

For example, using MHRA Style, Zotero will cite the full reference, eg Author, A, Title (italicised), and full bibliographical details as entered in Zotero, the first time the reference is cited.

Thereafter, if only one work by that author is cited, Zotero will just cite the author's surname plus page number. That is quite correct by MHRA guidelines.

However, my author wants to use his own abbreviations, eg CTS for 'Christ the Stranger', throughout the citations.

Does anyone know if Zotero will do this? I have tried editing each reference by hand, which is hopelessly time-consuming. I've also tried entering the abbreviated title as a separate 'book' in Zotero, but this seems to confuse it completely.

Could anyone advise, please?

Thank you,
Frith

adamsmith

I don't think that can be done, but could you provide a full example? I.e. first citation, subsequent citation as they should appear?

danny_wolpert

Perhaps an ugly hack could provide a quick solution.
Make the short title for the text in question "CTS"
create a new entry for zotero by the author in question, cite the dummy text somewhere in the document in a page not to be printed or seen at the beginning of the document.
The subsequent citations should then come up as Author, Shortitle &c.

Ugly but a way around things perhaps?

adamsmith

This may also be possible by just using the short title and hacking the style a bit, but I'd want to see examples before I can say for sure.