Chicago Manual of Style formatting problems

This has been a problem every time I use CMS--not just the new version. If I compare the way Zotero formats my footnotes and bibliography, there's a difference in the layout that's mandated by CMS. For example, the new CMS specifies the following footnote method for a chapter in an edited book with multiple authors: First Last Name, "Title of Chapter" in Title of the book, ed. First Last Name (Place: Pub. Date), page.

Zotero ALWAYS does: last, first name, "Title", in Last, First name ed. Title of Book, page.

The name order for author and editor is incorrect and there's no pub information.

So it's trivial and I don't want to be a stickler but one of my professors is. I just got a 40 page paper back with every footnote red-marked. I'm submitting another one and I'm having to go through every footnote to switch things around. Is there a way to customize document or library preferences?
  • Something is wrong with either how you enter data or how you generate footnotes using Zotero. Zotero does this exactly right. We are, in fact, also sticklers for precise citations. This is a copy&paste from a book chapter cited in Chicago style:

    Isabela Mares, “Firms and the Welfare State: When, Why, and How Does Social Policy Matter to Employers?,” in Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, ed. Peter A. Hall and David Soskice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 184–213.

    As you see, that's exactly as you say it should be. Could you start by saying how you generate the citations that are turning out incorrectly (Word plugin, somehow differently) and how you have entered the citation information for book chapters?
  • So just to be clear about how I'm working with Zotero: I'm using vers. 5.0.35 on a mac with Mozilla (v. 58.01) and I have zotero loaded into the latest version of Word (16.2)for mac.

    When I browse the online version of my university library (or another one--or worldcat), I click on the Zotero "page" icon in the dashboard to load the information into my personal library. I always check the listing to make sure it transferred correctly.

    I set the Zotero doc. preferences in my word-doc to CMS (footnote-note). When I added 3 footnotes (book, journal article, and book section), the following copy/paste is how they display:

    Turfa, Catalogue of the Etruscan Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 62, 160-61.

    Gleba, "Textile Production in Early Etruscan Italy: Working Towards a Better Understanding of the Craft in Its Historic, Social, and Economic Contexts," 22.

    Firth, "Mathematical Analysis of the Spindle Whorl and Loom Weight Data in the CTR Database," 34.

    They are missing the first names, editors (where applicable), journal names and dates, book publishers, locations and dates. These are the first three footnotes for the doc so it's not a matter of ibid/short version.

    Thanks for your help.


  • A bit hard to say, but which _exact_ Chicago style are you using? This looks like it might be Chicago (note); you want Chicago (full note). Both versions are described in the Chicago manual, but you clearly want the latter.

    The other possible problem I could see is that book chapter are practically _never_ imported automatically from anywhere, so to the extent that they're the problem, you'd definitely want to double-check they're entered as described here: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/edited_volumes_and_book_chapters

    (FWIW, 16.2 also isn't the latest Word for Mac version -- that'd be 16.91 -- but I don't see any reason that should change things).
  • Okay, full-note did the trick. I will select that from now on. Another question about CMS formatting: I would prefer to use endnotes, but Zotero always uses Roman numerals for the citation. In a longer text with lots of footnotes, it looks odd--for example footnote # 138 is cvxxxviii. Is there a way to de-select that format and just use arabic numerals?
    Thanks for the full-note tip.
  • That's not Zotero -- the Endnote/Footnote numbering is handled by Word and you can easily convert it there. See e.g. https://libroediting.com/2015/06/03/how-do-i-change-the-numbering-style-of-footnotes-and-endnotes-in-word/
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