replacing et al string

Hello!

I'm adapting the Chicago manual author-date style for my thesis.

I'd like to have [FirstauthorYear] (example [Doe2002]), but so far I've been unable to get rid of "et al". So I get [Firstauthor et al. Year] (example [Doe et al. 2002])

How could I get rid of et al?

Also, how could I use a new line as a suffix/prefix?

Thanks for your help,
Ajasja
  • I'm not sure if this makes sense. I think the standard requires to mention "et al" if the publication has more than 3 authors. This is intended as a hint that there are more authors than just (the first) one. Some kind of democratization in the academia...
  • Well, since I don't have a citing style prescribed, I'd like to use what I’ve used in the past. The [FirstAuthorYear] worked really well for me back in the old days before Zotero when I was still managing my references manually =)
    I find that the “et al.” just takes up to much precious space, especially when I have many citations in a small part of text. http://ajasja.ljubetic.googlepages.com/zotero_style_example.jpg
    Anyway I’d probably have to localize et al. to Slovenian (“in drugi”), so I’d rather just get rid of it.
  • ajasja,

    I'm not a developer, just another user. But I'm pretty sure that there are norms and rules to follow. If you are using the Chicago Style then it is the norm to use "et al.". I'm not sure if your picture shows an accepted citation norm. But try another style from the Zotero Style Repository". Hover with the mouse over the style and you will find an example in the lower frame.

    If we users want to create your own citation styles then we have to learn how to program the Citation Style Language (CSL) or to wait until there are good tools for easy creating and/or modifying styles. There is the development of a Style Generator under the way. I tried it out, but it seems still buggy and the interface lacks some comfort. (One would need to see an example which shows the changes immediately. So one has to finish to download and install the style and then to modify the style again.) But it is surely worth a try.

    Concerning the localization of your et al. string: That's strange. I looked up the BabelZilla loacalization data base and it says that the Slovenian localization is 100% finished and should work. Did you set the locale string in your browser correctly?
  • Thanks for the reply.
    Yup, I know, I'm learning CSL right now:)
    I did mange to change the vertical alignment (that was easy: just set vertical-align="sup" to the group or layout.
    Changing the () to [] was easy as well (the prefix and suffix attributes).
    But I just can't seem to get just the surname of the first author.

    As for the locale string: I have it set to en-GB (because I also have english Win XP and like to have a consistent UI). But I'll try setting "extensions.zotero.export.bibliographyLocale" to "sl".

    Below is the author macro and the citation style of my modified “Chicago manual style”


    <macro name="author-citation">
    <names variable="author">
    <name form="short" and="text" delimiter=""/>
    <substitute>
    <names variable="editor"/>
    <names variable="translator"/>
    </substitute>
    </names>

    <citation>
    <option name="et-al-min" value="4"/>
    <option name="et-al-use-first" value="1"/>
    <option name="et-al-subsequent-min" value="4"/>
    <option name="et-al-subsequent-use-first" value="1"/>
    <option name="disambiguate-add-year-suffix" value="true"/>
    <option name="disambiguate-add-names" value="false"/>
    <option name="disambiguate-add-givenname" value="false"/>
    <layout vertical-align="sup" delimiter="">
    <group delimiter=", ">
    <group prefix="[" suffix="]" delimiter="">
    <text macro="author-citation"/>
    <text macro="date"/>
    </group>
    <text macro="point-locators"/>
    </group>
    </layout>
    </citation>
  • Jesus, you are an expert! Maybe I should learn CSL as well? How long did it you take? Are you a programmer or computer scientist?

    The last few days I spent my time with converting my data from EndNote to Zotero. After three days hard work I finally succeeded. - See my report. - So I could start learning CSL ;-)

    BTW: There is already a Slovenian localized beta version of FF available.
  • But I'll try setting "extensions.zotero.export.bibliographyLocale" to "sl".
    Try "sl-SI". (See the full list of available codes.)
  • @Dan: Thanks, it works great (I get the Slovenian "idr."). But I'd still like to remove this in the citations (but not in the bibliography). If push comes to show, I'll just do a find & replace in the text:)

    @petzi: not really =) I do like to program in Delphi though.
    CSL is not that difficult, especially if you just want to do some minor modifications. I basically just read the syntax summary and then I started to play around. I do use git so that I always have a working copy, because if you get something wrong all the citations may just disappear:)
  • to ajasja:
    I also want to translate “et al.”into Chinese. However, I can't get the translating entry of “et al.”. Can you help me?

    Thanks!
  • heromyth: Set extensions.zotero.export.bibliographyLocale to zh-TW in about:config.
  • Sorry for my question.
    I have found what happed to me. It's because my locales-zh-CN.xml has not been translated. I'll do the work, and submmit my newst locales-zh-CN.xml to zotero.org.

    Dan Stillman, thanks! You are so kind.
  • heromyth: Great. If you're just working on locales-zh-CN.xml, you can send it to support@zot....org. If you'd like to make additional changes to the zh-CN locale (for the rest of the interface), you can create an account on Babelzilla and update the zh-CN locale there. Thanks for your help.
  • Yeah, I see all the files of locales-*.xml are from http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbiblio/, so I have submitted locales-zh-CN.xml there.

    I have already had a account on Babelzilla:-) I'll try to do some translations for zh-CN locale, and then update it there.

    By the way, I want these strings:
    et al.
    and
    translated in Zotero(not in csl). So I add a entry:
    general.and=和
    into zotero.properties, and it works. Then, whant can I do for the string of "et al.".

    It does not work using this entry :
    general.et-al=等
  • Could you explain what you're trying to accomplish? Where and how are you trying to use the string?
  • edited August 23, 2008
    The string of "et al." is also used in the second column in the main form of Zotero. Here is it's format:
    Title Creator +

    When the creators are multi-authors, it is showed as "someone et al."

    By the way, I have finished all the translations of zh-CN locale files which are from Zotero's SVN, and it seems I can't submit my translations on Babelzilla. Where should I submit them?

    Thanks!
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