initials and chicago

steffanmathias

I'm using 'Chicago Manual of style 16 edition (full note, no ibid)', and my supervisor has told me for consistency to use only initials of first names and last names, as I can not get hold of all the first names of the authors. It there anyway to make it automatically use initials for the first names, without removing the information from Zotero?

aurimas

You can edit the style yourself and modify line 140 by adding initialize-with="." as an attribute to the <name> element (see docs).

dunning

You shouldn't have to be tracking down the first names of authors; Chicago ¶14.72 states:

Authors’ names are normally given as they appear on the title pages of their books. Certain adjustments, however, may be made to assist correct identification (unless they conflict with the style of a particular journal or series). First names may be given in full in place of initials. If an author uses his or her given name in one cited book and initials in another (e.g., “Mary L. Jones” versus “M. L. Jones”), the same form, preferably the fuller one, should be used in all references to that author. To assist alphabetization, middle initials should be given wherever known. Degrees and affiliations following names on a title page are omitted.

On the other hand, Zotero can in fact initialize everything for you; simply change the beginning of the CSL file to read:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<style xmlns="http://purl.org/net/xbiblio/csl" class="note" version="1.0" demote-non-dropping-particle="never" page-range-format="chicago" initialize-with=".">


This will change names to something like 'J.B. Doe', following modern conventions; if you want to be really strict about following Chicago and instead get 'J. B. Doe', use the following:

initialize-with=". "

dunning

Ah, aurimas beat me to it. Is there any reason to put it on line 140 rather than at the beginning of the file?

aurimas

One is global (what you suggest), the other is specifically for authors (not editors, translators, etc.) So whatever you need. What you suggest probably works out better in this case.

steffanmathias

thank you so much, that's perfect±