JurisM first impressions

danielreedersanu
There has to be a better way.

I installed JM standalone on my Mac and it synced all my references from the Zotero server just fine.

But there's no one-page tutorial on how to get started that I can see.

Installing the standalone has somehow redirected the Zotero for Word 2011 plug-in to the JM library, and if JM standalone isn't open it doesn't go back to connecting to Zotero, so I'll need to fix that.

The JM interface for setting document preferences is really confusing. There's explanatory text that perhaps makes sense if you already understand what the different interface items are intended to do... but made absolutely no sense to me.

Attempting to install the Word to JM connector generated an error in Firefox saying it's not compatible with FF 47.

This is my worst case scenario for trying to get BlueBook compliance in a citation manager -- a parallel system that breaks my existing setup, and that I can't really recommend to my project leader because the interface is user-unfriendly.

I respect the energy that Frank has put into this project, I really do, but there just has to be a better way of handling the different citational needs and practices of lawyers and legal researchers.
  • adamsmith
    I'm not familiar enough with all of the details of Juris-m to help with all of this but
    Attempting to install the Word to JM connector generated an error in Firefox saying it's not compatible with FF 47.
    you shouldn't need to install this. Since juris-m is standalone, word integration ships with it and you shouldn't install anything in Firefox (or are you getting that message in juris-m Standalone?).
    The JM interface for setting document preferences is really confusing. There's explanatory text that perhaps makes sense if you already understand what the different interface items are intended to do... but made absolutely no sense to me.
    I'm sure Frank would love to improve this (and/or help in this specific case), but this feedback is too vague. What are you trying to do exactly that isn't working and/or which items do you not understand?
    Installing the standalone has somehow redirected the Zotero for Word 2011 plug-in to the JM library, and if JM standalone isn't open it doesn't go back to connecting to Zotero, so I'll need to fix that.
    That's certainly no good and shouldn't happen. I'd imagine all it takes to fix this, though, is "Reinstall Word components" in the Cite tab of Zotero
  • fbennett
    @danielreedersccv,

    Sorry to hear you've had a bad experience, and I hope you are able to find a tool that better serves your purposes.
  • danielreedersanu
    @adamsmith

    I am not trying to give any specific feedback on problems with JurisM. I used it for long enough to establish that, given the interface, it's not realistic for me to recommend this to my colleagues and senior staff.

    My feedback is really for Zotero.

    Specific problem:

    This is what appears when the Zotero for Word 'Add citation' function is activated for the first time when JM Standalone is running:

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/01otv60l91jvpjd/Screenshot 2016-08-22 18.15.56.png?dl=0

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/7exxjq0b874pvid/Screenshot 2016-08-22 18.12.15.png?dl=0

    If I close JM Standalone, clicking 'Add citation' causes Word to hang completely. Reinstalling the Word connector does fix the problem, until the next time JM Standalone is opened.

    General problem:

    There has to be a better way of doing legal citations without needing to install a fork of Zotero maintained by a single person, even if they are as committed and skilled as Frank Bennett.

    I compared the citations Zotero inserted for legal books and periodicals, and it got them mostly correct, apart from inserting abbreviations from Medline instead of Bluebook.

    All I need there is the ability to specify what list of abbreviations to draw from - Medline or something else.

    Similarly, most legal citations are preceded by some kind of signal indicating what kind of support is drawn from the cited text -- again, these are highly conventional and could be drawn from a list.

    In closing, again, I really want to emphasise that I'm not wishing to criticise Frank's efforts - for some people JurisM will be a powerful tool that does exactly what they are looking for. But for me, I'm a more mainstream academic who sometimes works with legal publishers and just needs the 80-20 solution.
  • fbennett
    This is what appears when the Zotero for Word 'Add citation' function is activated for the first time when JM Standalone is running...
    This is a Juris-M issue, not a Zotero bug.

    (It should be documented, but it's not worth addressing the behaviour itself—Juris-M processes standard CSL styles normally, and has a data model that extends, but does not modify, that of official Zotero, so for non-legal, non-multilingual references, there is very little difference between the two.)
  • fbennett
    Similarly, most legal citations are preceded by some kind of signal indicating what kind of support is drawn from the cited text -- again, these are highly conventional and could be drawn from a list.
    There is this plugin, but it seems not to work with official Zotero so someone would need to resolve the compatibility issue.
  • adamsmith
    @fbennett
    If I close JM Standalone, clicking 'Add citation' causes Word to hang completely.
    this part doesn't seem right, though?

    @daniel
    As for abbreviations, some thoughts that may (or may not) help. Generally I wish this worked more smoothly in Zotero, but it's not super high priority for anyone:
    - Frank's abbreviations add-on does work with regular Zotero. You could see if you find it easy enough to use
    - You can turn off automatic journal abbreviations in Zotero's Word add-on; Zotero then falls back to the content of the journal Abbr. field of the item, which you can easily edit.
    - It's technically possible to supersede Zotero's built-in abbreviations list with a separate JSON file, but again, you may not find this user friendly enough.

    as for:
    There has to be a better way of doing legal citations without needing to install a fork of Zotero maintained by a single person
    It's certainly still the hope that some/most of the functionality Frank has been working on will make its way back into Zotero, but that's very likely years out.
    Frankly, the reason there is no better way is lack of commitment/engagement from the legal profession. As long as no one puts serious funding behind this (the way the humanities and library sciences have done with Zotero, say), lone rangers like Frank are the only way this will move at all.
  • fbennett
    Frankly, the reason there is no better way is lack of commitment/engagement from the legal profession. As long as no one puts serious funding behind this (the way the humanities and library sciences have done with Zotero, say), lone rangers like Frank are the only way this will move at all.
    +1
  • shamsulfalaah
    Hi. I am using Juris-M for my citation because I have to use the New Zealand Law Style. Searching for resources by ISBN and DOI etc, is fine in my Zotero, however, the Juris-M does not find - I think this function in my Juris-M is not working.

    Can anybody suggest me any solution? Thanks in advance.
  • fbennett
    It's working here. Can you post an ISBN or DOI that fails for you?
  • shamsulfalaah
    edited August 22, 2016
    9780674048195
    Constitutional Theocracy

    Do you think that this might be resolved if I uninstall juris-m and try again?
  • fbennett
    @adamsmith
    @fbennett
    If I close JM Standalone, clicking 'Add citation' causes Word to hang completely.
    this part doesn't seem right, though?
    True, but with only months left to go for the Zotero 4.0 codebase, and with work to adapt Juris-M to Zotero 5.0 only just beginning, it's probably best left alone.
  • fbennett
    edited August 22, 2016
    @shamsulfalaah,

    That ISBN works here as well, in JM for Firefox. Are both of your trials (for Zotero and for JM) done with a Firefox plugin, or is one or the other done in a Standalone version?
  • shamsulfalaah
    @fbennett

    I use the standalone version for windows. Thanks its working now with the firefox plugin. Thank you so much.
  • fbennett
    That's good to hear.

    I'll test ISBN/DOI fetches with the Standalone version next time I get a chance, but (if I remember correctly) it's possible that there are just network proxy issues at your location that don't play well with Standalone.
  • danielreedersanu
    @adamsmith
    Frankly, the reason there is no better way is lack of commitment/engagement from the legal profession.
    That's the point of my feedback - in their current state I can't recommend Zotero/JurisM for lawyers and legal academics, and without them seeing the potential in Zotero, they're not going to invest in it.

    Unfortunately, they don't just see an incorrect abbreviation as wrong, they see it and who- or whatever produced it as *bad* -- so the threshold for 'seeing potential' is a bit higher than other markets. And this is why I finished my own law degree and went into communications research. :P
  • fbennett
    @danielreedersccv,

    Well, thanks a lot for your feedback, then. :-)

    We'll take it from here.
  • danielreedersanu
    @fbennett

    Of course. All the best.
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