Use of dashes in citations

nathan.lamontagne
I have noticed that when I put in pages with a hyphen, it uses a hyphen (the short dash), just like I put in Zotero. However, in MS Word, when I use the citation, even though I put a hyphen into the "Pages Cited" text box, when it inserts the citation into Word, that hyphenb gets changed to an en dash (the slightly longer one). For my style purposes, I have to always use the hyphen in between pages.

I can't find a setting to change this; does anyone know how it is supposed to be done?
  • adamsmith
    are you sure this changes to an em dash? Note that there are actually three types of dashes (in ascending order of wideness): hyphen, en-dash, em-dash. An en-dash should _always_ be used for page ranges. An em dash is never correct there, that's why there isn't any setting for this. Zotero should always give you an en-dash in the page range.
  • nathan.lamontagne
    I edited the post for hyphens and en dashes; you were correct. As to being sure which I am supposed to use, I can quote from teh CBQ style guide:

    When indication of pages or years involves inclusive (continued) arabic numbers,
    use the following rules for expressing the second number. (Note that hyphens rather than
    N- dashes are used between page numbers [contrary to the Chicago Manual15], as between
    biblical verses.)
  • nathan.lamontagne
    edited December 9, 2011
    So no, an en dash should not _always_ be used for page ranges. I think we've had discussion before about how messed up the CBQ contributors style guide is. I don't like it, but I do have to use it.
  • adamsmith
    I'm pretty sure that can't be fixed, no. Hyphen's for number-ranges are commonly considered typographical mistakes, that's why Zotero doesn't support them.
  • bdarcus
    CSL has no support for configuring this. CSL processors (like the one in Zotero) just "do the right thing" (which is an en-dash). ;-)

    I say don't worry about it. I seriously doubt anyone will complain about en-dashes. If they do they, you can do a search-and-replace when you're done.
  • dstillman
    Original thread: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/5915/#Item_19

    Closing this one.
This discussion has been closed.