Workaround for non-standard/unsupported item-types?

S.McManus

Due to my area of study, I often need to reference non-standard sources (e.g. UK debates /written questions and answers /written ministerial statements, etc.).

From what I've read in Zotero documentation/forums, I understand that it isn't sensible or feasible for such sources to have their own item type. Using a different item type (e.g.'Report' or 'Hearing') and/or the Extra field seems to be the recommended solution.

However, I cannot seem to find any combination of these solutions that will provide the correct citation in the style I need (APA 7th). I've added an example below in case I'm missing an obvious solution, although from this discussion it seems that there might not be one.
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Example: Parliamentary written Q&As should be cited in the following format:

Parl Written Questions and Answers (Year) Written Question/Answer number, Database name/URL/DOI

E.g. in practice, the reference and in-text citation should be formatted as below:
reference:
Parl Written Questions and Answers (2015) HL 1298, https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Lords/2015-09-07/HL1928/
In-text citation:
(Parl Written Questions and Answers (2015) HL 1298)

- note that the title is not italicized, there is no period after the year, and a comma (not a period) is used after the Q&A number. I haven't been able to work out a way to replicate this format with Zotero in APA 7th.
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I'm happy to accept that there are some references I need to manually format/type myself, but I can't see a way to reasonably keep track of this in Zotero.
Do I just need to make a list of every unsupported source and manually add these to the word document once everything else is finished?
Or is there a way the changes I need (see example) could be done with the 'Extra' field that I'm missing?

If anybody s able to offer any advice or resources on the best way to manage sources that don't seem to 'fit' into Zotero's system it would be very much appreciated!

(NB: I'm afraid I don't have any experience with coding so any solutions on that front are a bit out of my reach without step-by-step instructions.)

adamsmith

Where is that sample reference/format from? It seems quite unusual for APA, e.g., to include the title after the year for an in-text reference.

S.McManus

Thanks @adamsmith - the sample is from CiteThemRight, which also offers the following explanation of the format:

APA and the Bluebook do not give guidance on the referencing of Written Questions and Written Statements. The citation order below is adapted from the Bluebook example for Parliamentary Debates.

Before September 2014, Written Questions and Answers and Written Ministerial Statements were recorded in Hansard (...)

Since 12 September 2014, Written questions and answers and Written ministerial statements have been published in the Written questions and answers database instead of Hansard. Questions and answers in the database are given a number to include in their citation.

APA and Bluebook give no guidance on citing these sources, so the citation order below adapts that for Hansard. The full date is included to assist retrieval using the database and the URL will also assist your reader to locate the question and answer.

I assumed it would be best to follow CiteThemRight's reasoning due to the lack of specific guidance elsewhere and the need to include the Q&A ref. number but might be overthinking it.

bwiernik

These sorts of legislative materials would be considered “hearing”. The recommended citation you quote doesn’t really look like APA format at all, so I would disregard that entirely.