Author name in footnote question

strikesaionz
Hello,

First, let me say thanks for all the work many of you have done in answering obscure, arcane programming and formatting questions over the years. It has saved me much frustration and made my Zotero experience a good one.

I'm hoping this one is an easy fix and I overlooked something. Pretty straightforward question. I have two (or more) works by the same author in footnotes. By the time I cite the second book, it uses the full author name in the footnote. The particular style guide of Chicago/Turabian I use--and just my general preference--says that only the author's last name should be used in these cases. For example:

What's happening:
1. David J. Weber, Taos Trappers etc etc etc
2. David J. Weber, Mexican Frontier etc etc etc

What I'd like:
1. David J. Weber, Taos Trappers etc etc etc
2. Weber, Mexican Frontier etc etc etc

Sorry if it's a dumb question. Thanks in advance.

Matt
  • adamsmith
    That should already be the case. How do you have your author entered in Zotero?
    It should be Weber, David J. and you should see a single white rectangle next to it.
  • strikesaionz
    That is indeed how I have it entered in Zotero. Rectange is next to it as well. Not sure if it has anything to do with it, but I have the citation style in document preferences set to Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition (full note). I'm thinking that might be it, but I had switched to it to accommodate some other idiosyncrasy that of course I can't remember.
  • adamsmith
    Oh sorry, I misread this:
    The first time a work is cited, Chicago Manual/Turabian always includes the full citation, including the author's full name. That is also true if a different work by the same author has been cited previously.

    If you want to diverge from Chicago on this and shorten authors as you have it above, that's unfortunately not possible with Zotero/CSL.
  • maier.de
    Also let me add that I don't think this is a particularly useful choice as this will lead to confusion if you have two authors with the same last name in your document. In any case, that's not official Chicago/Turabian, and as adamsmith has already pointed out, currently not possible with Zotero/CSL.
  • strikesaionz
    I appreciate the help!
Sign In or Register to comment.