Chicago Full Note Style: Shortened Citations with Dates?

I use Chicago Full Note Style. One of the references I use quite a lot is shortened as follows: ʿAbduh, al-Aʿmāl al-Kāmila, 2006, 3:103 and 105. Why does it include the date too? Because there are several volumes within this title? Because it's a second edition? I still would not think that the date is very relevant, and I wonder how I can delete it (but preferably not manually, as I cite this work very often and I want it to continue being updated automatically).

I cannot find if this specific short form is obligatory in Chicago. It does not seem to be so:
"[CMoS] 14.25 Basic structure of the short form

The most common short form consists of the last name of the author and the main title of the work cited, usually shortened if more than four words, as in examples 4–6 below. For more on authors’ names, see 14.27. For more on short titles, see 14.28. For more on journal articles, see 14.196."

This does not occur with other titles, for example: Badawi, The Reformers of Egypt, 66–67.

Thanks for any help!
  • PS: I now found out that it does generate this result in other instances too. For example:
    - Blunt, My Diaries, 1920, 2:69–70

    But not in all cases (even when it's a volume of multiple-volume work):
    - i.e. Riḍā, Tārīkh, 1:868–870, 1034

    Anybody understands the logic behind it?
  • the date would only be included where two citations would be identical otherwise, i.e. to distinguish between two works by the same author with the same title (think, e.g., of newspaper articles with common titles). I'm not sure that's explicitly covered by the manual (though I think it is), but it's definitely in the spirit of keeping short forms distinguishable.

    If that's not in line with what you're seeing, it'd be helpful to provide minimal examples in a new document (i.e. as few citations as possible to generate the date in the short form).
  • edited July 22, 2015
    Thank you very much, adamsmith. I totally see why short forms should be distinguishable, but in this case the addition of the date does not help as the volumes are all published in the same year (in contrast: the additional information of the volume does help, for example).

    I followed your suggestion to see when the date appears in the short form and when not. It only appears when I add a reference to another volume of this work (which makes sense). However, it only adds the date and NOT the specific volume: this makes it indistinguishable from shorts forms of another volume of this work (as they have the same year of publication). However, it does add the volume when a specific page number is entered.

    So, the distinguishing logic behind the generation of the short forms seems to be a bit off in this case? Anything I can do about it?

    On the other hand, it has given me insight in why it generates the date at all: I guess it is often the case that different volumes are published in different years, which makes it eligible to be a marker of distinction. Still, I think the volume-number is a better marker of distinction, but I am not sure if I (or anyone else at Zotero) can change that?
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