CMOS and Quotations Marks for Unofficial Manuscript or Document Titles

DonnaCoxBaker

CMOS 17 states this about manuscript titles:
--- quote ---
In notes and bibliographies, quotation marks are used only for specific titles (e.g., “Canoeing through Northern Minnesota”), but not for generic names such as report or minutes. Generic names of this kind are capitalized if part of a formal heading actually appearing on the manuscript, lowercased if merely descriptive. Compare 14.229, example notes 7–10.
---
Many manuscripts and documents encountered by historians are untitled and the researcher must put an unofficial title in (or say "untitled"). Or, as above, we might use the generic "report." I usually use a descriptive title. Zotero puts anything in the title field for Documents and Manuscripts into quotation marks. If Zotero did not force the quotations marks, they could be entered by the user and no extra work would be required on cleanup at publication. And everything would look neat and clean in Zotero. But if you are using an unofficial title, you have to hack the program to flag that the item should not have quotation marks. (I put the unofficial title in brackets.) Why not let all titles of these types have no quotation marks unless entered by the user? Or have a flag beside the field that lets the user choose, since CMOS requires a choice to be made? Or, using CMOS's requirement, can Zotero recognize that the user is using a lower-case title and when found, remove quotation marks?

Eallynm

I agree with Donna. I'd like to be able to put descriptions of unpublished material in the title field of Zotero without having to strip the inappropriate (according to CMOS) quotation marks either. I am not (yet) skilled enough in CML to be able to alter the style myself. The absence of quotation marks indicates that the information in the title field is a description, rather than a title.

Eallynm

See CMOS 17, "Manuscript Collections" 14.221 and following.

adamsmith

I've seens this, but this doesn't have a simple solution.
We almost certainly won't do this:

Why not let all titles of these types have no quotation marks unless entered by the user?

because citation style specific data entry isn't something I'd want to encourage and not all styles handle titled manuscripts the same way Chicago does.

Or have a flag beside the field that lets the user choose, since CMOS requires a choice to be made?

Currently Zotero doesn't have any such flags, so that'd be significant design departure. CSL also doesn't have any way to handle this.

Or, using CMOS's requirement, can Zotero recognize that the user is using a lower-case title and when found, remove quotation marks?

Also won't work, since CSL doesn't look at the content of variables at all.

We can see if it's possible to make the distinction based on item types (document vs. manuscript, say), but that seems cluncky, too, so currently I don't have a good idea on how to handle this.

Eallynm

Thanks for your prompt reply. How about having an item type for untitled manuscript and have a descriptive title field rather than a title field? The contents of the description field would be placed in the title position without quotation marks.

adamsmith

I think that makes sense, but isn't possible in current CSL. I can tell you how to do this in a custom workaround CSL style. Which exact CMoS version are you using?

Eallynm

CMOS 17. See 14.223 for a description of the type of material that should have a generic, unquoted, title. And see 14.229 for examples. Is there some other existing item type for which titles are neither italicized or in quotes?

Eallynm

I use the CMoS 17 full note style in Zotero.

Eallynm

Is there currently an Zotero item type for CMoS (full note) that does not either italicize the title or enclose the title in quotes?

adamsmith

case, interview, and patent -- no great fit, but that's what there is.

Eallynm

Adam, Finally getting back to this. Would you please tell me how to do a custom workaround CSL style (manuscript or document) that does not have quotation marks around the title (CMos 17 - full note style).
Thanks!

adamsmith

Twice in the style, you find
<else-if type="legal_case interview patent" match="any">
<text variable="title"/>
</else-if>

Both times, change the first line to
<else-if type="legal_case interview patent manuscript document" match="any">

For subsequent citation a little further down there is
<else-if type="patent interview" match="any">
<text variable="title" form="short"/>
</else-if>

Change the first line to
<else-if type="patent interview document manuscript" match="any">


General instructions here:
https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

read those closely & don't miss the part about changing ID and title