Report type in Chicago Style

gusv2007

Hi,

For a long time I used the "Report" item type to cite Working Papers Series as Zotero does not come with a default type for WPS. The Report type worked perfectly as it cites "WPS Title" between quot. marks. After new upgrades, the Report type changed and now, Title is cited in italics. I worked around the CLS file and manged to get back "Title"; however, when I produce the Bibliography, the Title appears in italics. I'd appreciate any suggestion or idea. Many thanks!

adamsmith

we've had the new Chicago Style for at least 3 years with italics for reports.
I think all you need to do to get it in quotation marks is to delete "report" from the if type="... list in both the "title" and "title-note" macro.

I don't have a strong opinion on this either way--I'd personally tend to follow the working paper rather than the government report citation rules in Chicago Manual, but other people may feel differently about that.

gusv2007

Thank you. Yep, that is what I did. It works for the footnotes but not with the bibliography. It goes back to italics. I tried removing everything that said "Report" as well and didn't work. Any other idea? Anything to do at the end of the file (Bibliography)?

adamsmith

that definitely works. Are you testing this in the test pane?
https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/reference_test_pane
does it work there?

gusv2007

Here is the test pane screen shot https://www.dropbox.com/s/izxw5fatgu416ll/Untitled.png?dl=0

adamsmith

yeah, then you're only removing "report" from the condition in the title-note macro, not further down in the "title" macro. (I've tested this to make sure it works, which it does).

gusv2007

Ok. Done. I went through deleting "Report" in every line and checking on the pane screen. I don't know which line worked but I saved immediately just in case:) Many thanks

adamsmith

note that you need to change the style ID--otherwise it'll get overwritten by Zotero on updates
https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step#change_the_style_title_and_id

gusv2007

ooopsss. Yes I forgot. Thank you!

nickbart

… I'd personally tend to follow the working paper rather than the government report citation rules in Chicago Manual …

I totally agree, and would strongly support patching the various Chicago styles to have them format the Zotero (and CSL) “report” type as recommended in the Chicago Manual of Style, 16e, “14.228 Working papers and other unpublished works”, i.e., titles not italicised and in quotation marks.

I’m not sure which type exactly adamsmith means by “government reports” (I can’t find that exact term anywhere in the Manual), but I would guess it's something like “14.249 Pamphlets, reports, and the like”. For these, the Manual advises, “Pamphlets, corporate reports, brochures, and other freestanding publications are treated essentially as books.”

So the “14.249 Pamphlets …” format is very easy to obtain if you assign the “book” type to such an item (and populate series and series number, if necessary).

On the contrary, the “14.228 Working papers …” format currently is rather difficult to come by. You would have to (mis-)use “Presentation” or “Manuscript” but that’s by no means straightforward, in particular regarding type and number.

That’s why I’m in favour of patching the various Chicago styles to have them format “Report” titles in quotation marks but not italicised.

If you’d like me to submit pull requests for this, please let me know.

adamsmith

that'd be very helpful, yes. I was probably thinking of the pamphlet parts as well as of 14.303 which has a number of examples of government reports in italics. Completely agree with your reasoning, though.

bwiernik

This issue suggests that adding a number field to the Manuscript type might be worthwhile.

adamsmith

sorry, too many moving parts for me--for which part/citation would the number field be useful?

gusv2007

But if you fix the "Report" type in the CSL as I did you can continue using Report for Working Papers. And you don't need to add any number field. Is that what you are trying to use? Or government records? Although, the WPS number must be included in the "Report Type" field (i.e Working Paper 12381)instead of in the "Report Number" field in order to the number to appear in the cite.

bwiernik

At the moment, the recommendation seems to be to put both Working Papers (which frequently have numbers) and Government Reports into the zotero Report type. This is problematic, as this thread notes, because Chicago requires different formatting for these two types of references. The suggestion to store government reports in the Book type seems very hack-y, as many styles have distinct formatting requirements for books versus reports/pamphlets/etc. The manner of data entry should not be dependent on the style for something that isn't very niche. So it seems like the most appropriate course would be to store Working Papers in Manuscript and add the required fields (e.g., Number) to that type during the planned item types/fields update.

I'm afraid I don't understand gusv2007's comment. What exactly are you doing? Differentiate Working Paper versus Government Report in the Report type based on the presence of a report number?

adamsmith

No, we'll keep recommending Report for Working Paper. Manuscript doesn't work in other styles and report is conceptually the better fit. There are also significant switching costs, since that's what's implemented in all relevant translators in Zotero and styles in CSL (I personally think that Chicago Manual is conceptually misguided here -- working papers are individual, independent publications, they should be in italics).

I don't think using book for government reports that are (as described in 14.303) basically published as books is terribly problematic, no.