How to cite a Forward or Introduction by an author other than the book author?

feliciachavez
Could someone please tell me how to cite the author of a forward in Zotero? (The person is different from the authors of the book.) I'm using MLA, and know how to do it by hand, but don't know how to ask Zotero to do it.
  • adamsmith
    I can't guarantee we have that working correctly for MLA, but the basic idea would be to enter it as a book section, enter "Introduction" (or so) as the title, the book title as book title, the author of the introduction as author and the book's author as book author.
  • feliciachavez
    Ok, thanks for the tip.
  • a.m.izadpanah
    I am using MLA 8th stryle and though I've chosen "book section" format and filled the parts about the author correctly, I still have the same issue. Whereas MLA 8th handbook suggests under the section "2.2.1 Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Afterword" that the correct format in bibliography should be as follows:

    Anidjar, Gil. “Against History.” The Historiographic Perversion, by Marc Nichanian, translated by Anidjar, Columbia University Press, 2009.

    The format I recieve in my bibliography while using Zotero is:

    Anidjar, Gil. “Against History.” The Historiographic Perversion, translated by Gil Anidjar, Columbia University Press, 2009.
  • bwiernik
    @adamsmith It looks like container-author should be added here: https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/23ce30582961e4145be7fd09c22ca66367986bee/modern-language-association.csl#L95

    What about here? https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/23ce30582961e4145be7fd09c22ca66367986bee/modern-language-association.csl#L141
  • adamsmith
    Yes in 95 -- and 101.

    To get 141 right, we'd actually need significantly more complex logic that detects if at least one creator from the list in "other-contributors" gets rendered (taking into account the substitute on author). Happy to take PRs to that extent, but for an immediate fix I'd be happy with just the 95/101 fix.
  • bwiernik
    Could just be -if- author, then -if- other-contributors match="any", no?
  • adamsmith
    That'd be an improvement but e.g. not capture a work with no author but an editor and a translator etc.
  • bwiernik
    The other-creators list is currently:
    container-author editor illustrator interviewer translator

    Should any others be added (director is listed separately)? collection-editor?

    The comprehensive way to finish 141 would be a sequence of else-ifs for each variable in other-contributors:
    <else-if variable="container-author">
    <choose>
    <if variable="director editor illustrator interviewer translator" match="any">
    </if>
    </choose>
    </else-if>
    <else-if variable="director">
    <choose>
    <if variable="editor illustrator interviewer translator" match="any">
    …
    </if>
    </choose>
    </else-if>
    …

    If we wanted to simplify, could probably just do editor and illustrator/translator? But probably worth it to just finish out the whole list.
  • adamsmith
    Let's move this to github (but don't start a PR with that extended code -- pretty sure this can be done much simpler; I just want to move the tech discussion off the forum).

    The relevant answer for @a.m.izadpanah is that this isn't currently working and we're looking at fixing it.
  • bwiernik
    PR opened.
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