Style Error: Science

chiang.karen
The current Science style that Zotero uses is technically not wrong. However, Science appears to have two different reference guidelines listed on their website for some reason (http://www.sciencemag.org/authors/instructions-preparing-initial-manuscript vs. http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/contribinfo/prep/res/refs.xhtml, Zotero is using the latter). The major difference between that and the other style seems to be that the author list is never abbreviated (always listed in full). A lot of articles also seem not to use journal abbreviations (as opposed to the full title of the journal).

"Do not use op. cit., ibid., or et al. (in place of the complete list of authors' names). Notes should be used for information aimed at the specialist (e.g., procedures) or to provide definitions or further information to the general reader that are not essential to the data or arguments. (...) Journal article references should be complete, including the full list of authors, the full titles, and the inclusive pagination."

Since a bunch of recent articles seems to use this other version, would it be possible to have a second version of the Science CSL made?

Thank you!
  • LiborA
    edited August 3, 2017
    - In both links provided in your post are journal's titles abbreviated.
    - If I correctly understand both reference guidelines, then "et al." is used only for preprinted material; current CSL style is incorrect in this.
    - Pagination in current CSL style seems incorect. I commonly use "number of article" in electronic version only (the value "Q11010" in example N. H. Sleep, Stagnant lid convection and carbonate metasomatism of the deep continental lithosphere. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst., 10, Q11010 (2009), doi:10.1029/2009GC002702) as the page number; but the CSL style reproduce it as "in press", if I correctly understand the CSL code
  • chiang.karen
    Apologies, you're right about the journal's titles being abbreviated. I've since looked at more articles and this seems to be standard.

    Thanks for catching pagination; I hadn't noticed that at all.
  • LiborA
    @damnation can you look at it, please. I have no free time to do it. Thanks.
  • damnation
    I don't have time.
    Should only take a minute to fix anyway.
  • damnation
    edited August 8, 2017
    @LiborA
    - et al. That is correctly handled. "Use et al. (italics) for more than five authors." (source: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/contribinfo/prep/res/refs.xhtml)
    - Pagination: Again, that is correctly handled.

    @chiang.karen
    See this for the science style with full author list. Easy modification (just remove the et-al settings in line 124. https://gist.github.com/POBrien333/8ea679f4f634b6b3fbc1a5240b649446/raw/329a38ca7b1de0af49afdfc4cd89a1540309d372/science-full.csl

    Still unsure why Science has two different styles. As it often is the case though, the online guidelines do NOT match their actual publications.
  • bwiernik
    With Science, note that they use a different format for submissions and publication. That is intentional to save space in print on their part. Publication doesn’t print journal article titles, but submissions should. Not sure if perhaps there are differences in author formatting as well.

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