Chaning APA

Hello everyone

I am new with Zotero and I like it very much. For my thesis I have to apply APA, however in a bit a modified form. I have already tried modifying APA by changing the codes in the apa.csl file. Unfortunately I have no clue how to do that properly.

For the web pages, what I get is this:

The Lord of the Rings Tours. (2012): The Lord of the Rings Tours and Experiences Retrieved May 10, 2012, from http://www.lordoftheringstours.co.nz/index.htm

What I need instead is this:

The Lord of the Rings Tours. (2012): The Lord of the Rings Tours and Experiences. Accessed on May 10, 2012 at http://www.lordoftheringstours.co.nz/index.htm

(So a "." after the title, "accessed on" instead of "retrieved", no "," after the year and "at" instead of "from") Plus Zotero always makes a "." after the author even if it's an institution...

Could anyone help me change this?

Thanks so much!!
  • a "." after the title, "accessed on" instead of "retrieved"
    Add this at line 34 (of a current version of APA downloaded from the repository), immediately after <terms>:
    <term name="retrieved">accessed on</term>
    no "," after the year
    The current version of APA doesn't put a comma there for webpages.
    "at" instead of "from"
    At line 145 of current APA, change "from" to "at".
    Zotero always makes a "." after the author even if it's an institution...
    It is not possible to alter punctuation depending on whether authors are institutions or natural persons. It is unlikely that this will be introduced.
  • Thank you very much, that worked out just fine!

    Do you also know how I exclude the DOI from the bibliography?
  • edited May 14, 2012
    It depends on whether you want URLs to appear instead of the DOI, or want to suppress both of them.

    (Edit: the relevant code starts at around line 128 in the style. It should be fairly obvious what to do; feel free to post back if you get stuck.)
  • What exactly do I delete starting line 128?

    Thank you so much for your help! (As you can see I'm a complete beginner...)
  • It depends on whether you want URLs to appear instead of the DOI, or want to suppress both of them.
  • I only want the URL to appear for documents retrieved from the internet or for webpages.
  • Replacing the "access" macro with this should produce that result (assuming that you do not place anything in the URL field on items that are not downloaded from the Internet).

    Be sure to change the title and ID of your style, so it doesn't get overwritten by an update.
    <macro name="access">
    <choose>
    <if type="thesis">
    <choose>
    <if variable="archive" match="any">
    <group>
    <text term="retrieved" text-case="capitalize-first" suffix=" "/>
    <text term="from" suffix=" "/>
    <text variable="archive" suffix="."/>
    <text variable="archive_location" prefix=" (" suffix=")"/>
    </group>
    </if>
    <else>
    <group>
    <text term="retrieved" text-case="capitalize-first" suffix=" "/>
    <text term="from" suffix=" "/>
    <text variable="URL"/>
    </group>
    </else>
    </choose>
    </if>
    <else>
    <choose>
    <if type="webpage">
    <group delimiter=" ">
    <text term="retrieved" text-case="capitalize-first" suffix=" "/>
    <group>
    <date variable="accessed" suffix=", ">
    <date-part name="month" suffix=" "/>
    <date-part name="day" suffix=", "/>
    <date-part name="year"/>
    </date>
    </group>
    <text term="from"/>
    <text variable="URL"/>
    </group>
    </if>
    <else>
    <group>
    <text term="retrieved" text-case="capitalize-first" suffix=" "/>
    <text term="from" suffix=" "/>
    <text variable="URL"/>
    </group>
    </else>
    </choose>
    </else>
    </choose>
    </macro>

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