Two "original publication year" questions

Hello,

I have two small questions about using original publication years in Zotero.

Question 1:
I saw on another thread that to get the original publication year to appear in a record, you needs to add some text to the "extra". For a work originally published in 1893, one would add:

{:original-date: 1893}

to the extra field. However, in a second thread, the instructions listed a different format:

original-date: 1893

That is, one would leave out the curly brackets and first colon. Its easier to use the second version, and it seems to work. Is there any reason that I have to use the first version? I want to be sure before I edit 53 records in my database.

Question 2:
Also, when I create a bibliography in Chicago author-date style, the original publication year appears in parentheses, not brackets. Is there any way to change that?

Thanks for the help!
  • Without the curly brackets is preferred. That was an older style that is no longer necessary.

    Parentheses are the recommended format for original date in the Chicago manual. Are you sure that you want to change that?
  • Thanks!

    Re. the first question: Is the first colon required?

    Re. the second question. The in-text citation is currently formating correctly in Chicago style. For example Jones ([1913] 1970). However the entry in the works cited section appears as

    Jones, Fred. (1930) 1970. A History of Shoes. New York: Shoe Press.

    I believe that it should be

    Jones, Fred. [1930] 1970. A History of Shoes. New York: Shoe Press.

    Looking at the Chicago Manual, though, they aren't clear on this. I know that some presses want the later style. Is there any way to get this?

    Thanks again for the help.
  • No, leave out the first colon.

    The manual specifically says to use parentheses in the bibliography. (15.38)

    To change it, you would need to edit the Chicago author-date .csl style file. Open it in a text editor, find the reference for “original-date” and then change the prefix and suffix for that Macro from parentheses to square brackets.

    General style editing instructions here
    https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step
  • I am not able to get the extra field containing original date to appear in my bibliographies, either in-text citations or final bib. I'm using APA. Has anyone else had this problem?
  • How are you entering it exactly?
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