n.d. instead of "accessed, month, day, year

doyledh
I have the date accessed in the Zotero item information but it does not show up in the citation, and endnote in CMS full note:
“A Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union”, n.d., http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

What is the fix?
  • adamsmith
    See here:
    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/23826/chicago-full-note-computer-programs-and-webpage-accessed/#Item_6
    immediate solution is to enter a regular date.
  • fbennett
    The "n.d." is turning up there because the Date field is empty in the entry. As far as I know, the accessed date is not included by the (Zotero) Chicago styles.
  • doyledh
    I gather from the other thread that there is some question as to whether CMS actually requires the "accessed Month, day, year" in the citation. I'm happy to omit it if that is the case.

    I'm still not sure I understand how to fix the other problem, the appearance of "n.d." What exactly is the "date" of a web site, if not the date it was accessed? How does one omit the "n.d."?
  • adamsmith
    The date of the website is the date a text on a website was written. Sometimes you don't know, but many times there's a time stamp somewhere on the page -visibly or invisibly in the header.
    Zotero has a field for that - if you fill something in that field, you won't get the n.d. but rather that date.
    If you can't find a time stamp, it's probably correct to use the access date, which is the question discussed in the other thread.
  • fbennett
    Since the date is essential metadata for identifying a web page, might it might make sense, in the webpage type, for the style to use the Accessed date if the Date field is empty?
  • doyledh
    Does CMS specify they want the date the website was created in the citation? I have never seen that in a published work, only the "accessed date..."
  • adamsmith
    that's what's suggested in the thread I link to, yes.
  • adamsmith
    Here's CMS for note-based styles (16th edition 14.245)
    "Also include a publication date or date of revision or modification (see 14.8); if no such date can be determined, include an access date (see 14.7)."

    so yes, we should do what Frank says above, but also you should try to find a publication or revision date on the website which is preferred to an accessed date by CMS.
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