Reusing a style from Zotero Style Repository

kevinwilson

Hello,

When teaching Zotero to students, I ask them to download a different version of Harvard than the Elsevier Harvard given as they're expected to put dates in brackets, titles in italics, not abbreviate journal titles, etc. I usually ask them to download the Cite Them Right 9th ed. as this works fine.

I notice many UK universities e.g. Anglia Ruskin, Bournemouth, etc. have their own, but they're identical to the default Elsevier Harvard.

I'd like to reuse the Cite Them Right and title is as Harvard Goldsmiths (my institution) - just so it's easier for students to work out which they should use.

I've not done any creating or editing of styles - is it straightforward to just copy a style, rename it, then publish it?

Many thanks
Kevin

adamsmith

It's easy enough to do (https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step ), but I don't think we would take this for the CSL style repository (which Zotero draws its styles from). The repository is carefully curated, and every submission reviewed. It's not a place anyone can post their styles to*.

Two reasons we likely wouldn't take this: For a start, this sounds like it's your preference, not a rule common to the institution, so it may confuse other students.

Also, we try to limit the proliferation of styles -- if anything, there are already too many. Wouldn't it make sense to tell your students that they're using a standard common to many university's in the UK?
Note that you can provide a direct link to a style by clicking on the "link" text next to it -- if you put that in the syllabus or other classnotes, that may further help avoid confusion.

*All styles are under a creative commons CC-BY-SA license, though, so you'd be free to publish the style and any derrivatives on your own site