Vancouver CSL and formatting of reference when citing part of a homepage/Web site

luddis

I have a question about the Zotero reference formatting when using the standard Vancouver citation style and citing "part of a homepage/Web site" (as well as "part of database" on the internet). The problem is that the entry "part of website" is placed first in Zotero and not after the "accessed date".

The question is very similar to one asked many years ago, and without any comments or answers: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/61938/question-style-national-library-of-medicine-nlm/p1

According to the guidance document from National Library of Medicines (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html#electronic), which I believe the Vancouver CSL should follow, "part of homepage" should be cited as follows:

American Medical Association [Internet]. Chicago: The Association; c1995-2016 [cited 2016 Dec 27]. Office of International Medicine; [about 2 screens]. Available from: https://www.ama-assn.org/about/office-international-medicine

The "part of website" entry is placed after "[cited 2016 Dec 27]".

However, when using Zotero and the standard Vancouver CSL, the result is the following (using "Office of International Relations" as title and "American Medical Association" as "Website Title")

Office of International Relations [Internet]. American Medical Association. Chicago: The Association; 2016 [cited 2022 Jul 25]. Available from: https://www.ama-assn.org/about/office-international-relations

The "part of website" entry is placed first.

I have tried several different "flavors" of Vancouver CSL's and they all seem to output this "non-standard" formatting.

Does anyone have any more detailed information regarding this, or could someone point me to a CSL that adheres to the recommendations?

damnation

Can we just double check how you have this data entered in Zotero?

I'm getting (with Zotero directly):
"1. CSL Search by Example [Internet]. Citation Style Editor. London; 2017 [cited 2017 Aug 10]. Available from: http://editor.citationstyles.org/searchByExample/"

luddis

Thanks for your reply!

Exactly, I also get this format:
1. CSL Search by Example [Internet]. Citation Style Editor. London; 2017 [cited 2022 Jul 25]. Available from: https://editor.citationstyles.org/searchByExample/

I entered "CSL Search by Example" as title and "Citation Style Editor" as Website Title. "London" as "Place" in extra field.

But according to the vancouver- guidelines, "Citation Style Editor" should be placed first and "CSL Search by Example" after "[cited 2022 Jul 25]". As I understand the recommendations.

damnation

The guidelines state, in general, to replace the authors with the title ("CSL Search by Example").
That's what the style does correctly.

guidelines:
"4. No author given
21st century heart solution may have a sting in the tail. BMJ. 2002;325(7357):184."

luddis

So then, you mean, the guidelines contradict itself and thus you should adhere to the earlier statements in the guidelines and ignore later parts?

Such as:

"39. Part of a homepage/Web site
American Medical Association [Internet]. Chicago: The Association; c1995-2016 [cited 2016 Dec 27]. Office of International Medicine; [about 2 screens]. Available from: https://www.ama-assn.org/about/office-international-medicine"

or

"41. Part of a database on the Internet
MeSH Browser [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): U.S. National Library of Medicine; 2002 - . Meta-analysis; [cited 2017 Dec 1]; [about 1 p.]. Available from: https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/record/ui?ui=D017418 MeSH Unique ID: D017418."

I am personally not fond of putting the title/entry close to the end (as the guidelines recommend). But it feels a bit strange that the "official" vancouver CSL does not adhere more strictly to the guidelines. Or is there an online movement that also doesn't appreciate the current recommendations?

damnation

"American Medical Association" can be added as an author, using single-field mode.

"MeSH Browser" I would interpret as a title that has been subsituted as the author in this case as per the "no author given" instructions.

luddis

Thanks for your responses!

Just to make my point clear: I do not argue against placing the organization / database / webpage titel as the first entry in the reference (for example as author). Rather it is the placing of the "part of webpage / database" that is the problem when using Zotero and trying to follow the guidelines for referencing part of webpage or database.

According to the guidlines, the title of the webpage/database part (in the cases above: 39. "Office of International Medicine" and 41: "Meta-analysis"), should be placed close to the end (after the publisher), but this is not possible (as far as I know) to reproduce in Zotero using the standard Vancouver CSL. Am I right?

damnation

I see what you mean now.

I've been looking into the .csl and trying to implement it in the style, but the way the style is built, it's going to be tricky. But we'll figure something out.

luddis

Thank you for your feedback on the situation. I'm very content with the information I have recieved.

I conclude that there doesn't seem to be any formal reason why this part of the guidelines hasn't been included in the CSL style (though I am a bit surprised this hasn't been discussed before). But that there perhaps are som technically reasons for why this hasn't been implemented and possible won't be implemented in the foreseeable future.

damnation

Nono, we can certainly get this closer to the guidelines.

bwiernik

All that said, in my experience this isn’t something that most journals or reviewers are too concerned about. So, so long as the information is there, it’s not that big of a deal. damnation will look into improving the style, but as an author I don’t think you need to worry too much

luddis

That is probably true! The reason why I got caught up in this (rather peripheral) problem is that I am in charge of a team that publishes reports where these types of references are rather common. As a small summer project, we try to harmonize our references using Zotero and Vancouver, and in the midst of this work, we stumbled upon this minor anomaly.

And, if I read you right, it seems that, in the not too distant future, we could anticipate that the Vancouver style will come closer to the guidelines when citing webpages. Great and thank you, again!

damnation

I submitted a PR yesterday, but the team hasn't looked at it yet.
It's functional, but I don't like my implementation necessarily.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/citation-style-language/styles/0a3f302b9cd93391d1eabce9b5c53d7120461200/vancouver.csl

luddis

Nice!

However, after evaluating the CSL-file, I believe you may have mixed "website title" with "title". Trying to replicate the guideline example above using your version (PR?):

"39. Part of a homepage/Web site
American Medical Association [Internet]. Chicago: The Association; c1995-2016 [cited 2016 Dec 27]. Office of International Medicine; [about 2 screens]. Available from: https://www.ama-assn.org/about/office-international-medicine"

The result is this:
1. Office of International Relations [Internet]. Chicago: The Association; 2016 [cited 2022 Jul 26]. American Medical Association. Available from: https://www.ama-assn.org/about/office-international-relations

Here "Office of International Relations" is the title, and "American Medical Association" is the "website title". I think they should switch places in the reference.

luddis

As a side-note, trying to replicate the guideline-example, I also observe that it doesn't seem to be possible to reference the date as a "date-interval" (from-to) as in the example. Zotero just uses the last date entered. That is perhaps as it should be, but just to let you know!

damnation

Date ranges can be entered like this into the extra field:
Issued: 2019-09-21/2019-09-23

luddis

Ah! That's great to know!

damnation

I'll let the others chime in on the style edits needed. For me, the way the style is currently built, I'm not sure to achieve the exact order without completely rewriting the style.

luddis

Hi there! Any updates on this question about the placing of webpage titles in the Vancouver CSL?

damnation

I've had some feedback on my PR, but haven't gotten around to implementing them since the matter is complicated and I didn't have the motivation to dive into it again yet.

damnation

Hi,

I had the motivation again to look at this and made some new suggestions.

Can you test this out?
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/citation-style-language/styles/8941f91a3c3f11ef38ccaaead1e2b482b16a63de/vancouver.csl

damnation

The new style is now merged and available: https://www.zotero.org/styles?q=id:vancouver