Zotero's footnotes appear to be incorrect in Chicago style

Adia Awanata

Hi there,

I am using Zotero's Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition setting. In the footnotes, the author's first name is supposed to come first, followed by the last name. Ex: 1. Firstname Lastname, Title of Book (Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication), page number.
However, in my document, the last name is always coming first: Brown, Elsa Barkley, “Uncle Ned’s Children: Negotiating Community and Freedom in Postemancipation Richmond” (Kent State University, 1994); Litwack, Leon F., Been In the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (Toronto: Vintage Books, 1980).

How do I make Zotero cite these items correctly? I have already reset the document preferences several times to make sure it was using my selected citation method.

Thank you for your help.

Best Regards

Adia Awanata

The interesting thing is that sometimes the citations are correct (usually for books) and sometimes they are not. Sometimes it lists a citation as if it is the second mention of a source but it's actually the first. The journal article references are almost always wrong.

Thanks for your help.

aurimas

Regarding author names, can you take the reference that is displaying incorrectly, right-click it in Zotero, select Export, choose Zotero RDF, open the file in a text editor and copy-paste it to http://gist.github.com, then post the link here.

Adia Awanata

I am not able to open the file in wordpad. (Is that what you mean by a text editor?) It says there are no files.
Should I select export notes or export files, or both?

aurimas

You can uncheck both boxes on export. Once exported, right click the file and "Open with" -> WordPad. You can also just upload the file to Dropbox or something similar and share the link here.

Adia Awanata

When I right click on it there is no option for "opening with".

Adia Awanata

Now it's giving me the option but zotero is the only option listed.

aurimas

There should be a way to choose another program. You can also open WordPad first and then drag and drop the file into it. Or in WordPad select Open and then choose "all files" where it shows you file extensions.

Adia Awanata

<rdf:RDF
xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:z="http://www.zotero.org/namespaces/export#"
xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:bib="http://purl.org/net/biblio#"
xmlns:vcard="http://nwalsh.com/rdf/vCard#"
xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">
<bib:BookSection rdf:about="#item_493">
<z:itemType>bookSection</z:itemType>
<dcterms:isPartOf>
<bib:Book>
<dc:title>Social Welfare Policy: Regulation and Resistance Among People of Color</dc:title>
</bib:Book>
</dcterms:isPartOf>
<dc:publisher>
<foaf:Organization>
<vcard:adr>
<vcard:Address>
<vcard:locality>Los Angeles</vcard:locality>
</vcard:Address>
</vcard:adr>
<foaf:name>Sage Publications</foaf:name>
</foaf:Organization>
</dc:publisher>
<bib:authors>
<rdf:Seq>
<rdf:li>
<foaf:Person>
<foaf:surname>Davis, King E.</foaf:surname>
</foaf:Person>
</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>
<foaf:Person>
<foaf:surname>Lewis, Jr., Allen N.</foaf:surname>
</foaf:Person>
</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>
<foaf:Person>
<foaf:surname>Zhang, Ning Jackie</foaf:surname>
</foaf:Person>
</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>
<foaf:Person>
<foaf:surname>Thompkins, Albert</foaf:surname>
</foaf:Person>
</rdf:li>
</rdf:Seq>
</bib:authors>
<bib:editors>
<rdf:Seq>
<rdf:li>
<foaf:Person>
<foaf:surname>Schiele, Jerome H.</foaf:surname>
</foaf:Person>
</rdf:li>
</rdf:Seq>
</bib:editors>
<dc:title>Involuntary Commitment Policy: Disparities in Admissions of African American Men to State Mental Hospitals</dc:title>
<dc:date>2011</dc:date>
</bib:BookSection>
</rdf:RDF>

Adia Awanata

Is this good, or am I supposed to create a "Gist" and then give you the link for that instead?

aurimas

Yes, this is good. The issue is with how the authors are entered in Zotero. You either entered the whole name in the Last Name field or you're entering them in single field mode (which is meant for institutional authors, like "National Institute of Health"). If it's the former, then in Zotero you will see "(first)" next to the name. Otherwise it's the latter. In either case, you can correct this rather easily by toggling the field mode (the button that either shows a rectangle or two squares) to the right of the author's names. You want to toggle it until it shows a single rectangle. Unfortunately, you will also have to remove a comma that is placed at the end of the authors first name (we'll fix this in the next version of Zotero).

aurimas

Btw, did you enter this manually, or did you import the data from somewhere?

Adia Awanata

I imported the data using Notepad.

So when I use the two-name mode, the first box is supposed to be the last name of the person? And the second box the first name?

Thanks for your help.

fbennett

So when I use the two-name mode, the first box is supposed to be the last name of the person? And the second box the first name?

Yes, that's right.

Adia Awanata

Your suggestion appears to be working. Thanks a lot for your help.

ArmandLeon

Hi,

I have the same problem, and the solution works. However, when I toggle the field at the right of the author's name, it puts the author's first name in the first box. Is there an easy way to reverse the order, or should I do all items manually (I have over 500...)?

Thanks

adamsmith

Could you provide an example? If you have, say, "Armand Leon" in single field mode, it should definitely convert to "Leon, Armand"

ArmandLeon

Thanks for the quick response Adam!

I have entered all names with the last name first, for example Jones, Mark E. When I toggle, Zotero puts E. in the first field, and in the second field Jones, Mark. Other example: my initial entry 'Day, Juliette', becomes 'Juliette' in the first field, second field 'Day'.

I hope these examples are helpful.

adamsmith

It's a two-click operation then:
After switching to two-field mode, right click on the author and select "Swap first/last name".

ArmandLeon

That does the job!

Many thanks Adam!