Change quotation marks vs. language in the style sheet // change keyword "and" in author separation

HectorLL

Hello, all,

I am writing a paper in French, but I have to use the MLA format in US English, which means no French guillemets (« »), no matter what.
It is problematic for the bibliography, because selecting French in the export options will generate, as expected, those French quotes.
I cannot simply select "English" before exporting, because it will change all the basic keywords into English ("and" instead of "et", for ex), which I don't want.
The same problem occurs in Word when I cite different articles from the same author : the French guillemets will pop up. Selecting English in the Word would, again, only partially solve the problem.

I use Zotero and my OS in English and the locale in the editor is already set to "en".

I have read a couple of topics in this forum about editing the styles and one of them did partially solve the issue :

- I created a modified style sheet from MLA settings and added this <text variable="title" prefix="&#8216;" suffix="&#8217;"/> (from this discussion https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4543/single-quote-marks-from-quotes-formatting-element)

It solves the problem for the bibliography, but whenever I cite several articles from the same author directly in Word using the Zotero add-on (set to French), the « » are back...

Is there a way I can adjust this without causing the citation updates to stop?

I am a bit at the end of my wits with this problem.

Thank you very much for your help.

damnation

You can override quotation marks in the locale section. E.g. for your case:


<locale xml:lang="en">
<terms>
<term name="open-quote">»</term>
<term name="close-quote">«</term>
<term name="open-inner-quote">‘</term>
<term name="close-inner-quote">’</term>
</terms>
</locale>


You would add that to the locale section already in the style (only those 4 inner lines) or if it doesn't have on add that like I gave it to you (after the info section, before the first macro).

General steps to edit a style: https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

HectorLL

Hello, and thank you so much for taking the time to answer my post.

Unfortunately, the solution you provided does not work for me. I have no idea why nothing changes when I place the 4 lines within the term section (in the locale, as suggested). I had taken care to remove the text variable code in the meantime. The text was transformed in italics instead.
The only thing that makes the quotation marks change is the text variable I talked about in my first post.

But the real problem I am encountering is with the Word add-on, as I set the language to French. Because I did so, the Zotero add-on manages to override the text variable code in the style sheet, and the list of citations I have to edit manually is starting to grow...

A last resort would be to revert to English in the Zotero options in Word, but that would still mean having to alter the code, to change keywords such as "and" into "et" in French, etc for two or more authors, for instance. I looked at the Zotero style editing page guide, but did not find the specific area where "and" can be changed into something else inside of the "names" section...

I'm not sure which solution is the most viable for me right now.

Thank you so much for your help.

Here is a passage from my sheet :


<locale xml:lang="en">
<date form="text">
<date-part name="day" suffix=" "/>
<date-part name="month" suffix=" " form="short"/>
<date-part name="year"/>
</date>
<terms>
<term name="month-01" form="short">Jan.</term>
<term name="month-02" form="short">Feb.</term>
<term name="month-03" form="short">Mar.</term>
<term name="month-04" form="short">Apr.</term>
<term name="month-05" form="short">May</term>
<term name="month-06" form="short">June</term>
<term name="month-07" form="short">July</term>
<term name="month-08" form="short">Aug.</term>
<term name="month-09" form="short">Sept.</term>
<term name="month-10" form="short">Oct.</term>
<term name="month-11" form="short">Nov.</term>
<term name="month-12" form="short">Dec.</term>
<term name="translator" form="short">trans.</term>
</terms>
</locale>
<macro name="author">
<names variable="author">
<name name-as-sort-order="first" and="text" delimiter-precedes-last="always" delimiter-precedes-et-al="always" initialize="false" initialize-with=". "/>
<label form="long" prefix=", "/>
<substitute>
<names variable="editor"/>
<names variable="translator"/>
<text macro="title"/>
</substitute>
</names>
</macro>
<macro name="author-short">
<group delimiter=", ">
<names variable="author">
<name form="short" initialize-with=". " and="text"/>
<substitute>
<names variable="editor"/>
<names variable="translator"/>
<text macro="title-short"/>
</substitute>
</names>
<choose>
<if disambiguate="true">
<text macro="title-short"/>
</if>
</choose>
</group>
</macro>
<macro name="title">
<choose>
<if variable="container-title" match="any">
<text variable="title" prefix="&#8220;" suffix="&#8221;"/>
</if>


and the name / author section :


<group delimiter=", ">
<text macro="author-short"/>
<group>
<label variable="locator" form="short"/>
<text variable="locator"/>
</group>
</group>
</else>
</choose>
</layout>
</citation>
<bibliography hanging-indent="true" et-al-min="3" et-al-use-first="1" line-spacing="2" entry-spacing="0" subsequent-author-substitute="---">
<sort>
<key macro="author"/>
<key variable="title"/>
</sort>
<layout suffix=".">
<group delimiter=". ">
<text macro="author"/>
<text macro="title"/>
<date variable="original-date" form="numeric" date-parts="year"/>
<group delimiter=", ">
<!---This group corresponds to MLA's "Container 1"-->
<text macro="container-title"/>
<text macro="other-contributors"/>
<text macro="version"/>
<text macro="number"/>
<text macro="publisher"/>
<text macro="publication-date"/>
<text macro="location"/>
</group>
<group delimiter=", ">
<!---This group corresponds to MLA's "Container 2"-->
<!--currently just using this one for archival info-->
<text macro="container2-title"/>
<text macro="container2-location"/>
</group>
<text macro="accessed"/>
</group>
</layout>
</bibliography>
</style>

adamsmith

If you want the style to do something when set to French, it needs to be under
locale xml:lang="fr"
not "en"