Single person as editor and translator (MLA)

malczyk
Is there any way to combine a single creator who is both editor and translator, using MLA style? This is what Zotero generates:

Dyson, R. W., ed. Augustine: The City of God Against the Pagans. Trans. R. W. Dyson. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought.

But this is what MLA style should look like:

Dyson, R. W., ed. and trans. [...]

Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    I'll take a look. While I that's unusual, I think it should be doable without affecting anything else in the style. Might take a while, though.
  • cmagri2
    Could this be added to the Chicago styles, too? "ed. and trans." does not appear very frequently, but it does, see CMoS, 16th ed., 14. 215 and 14.265.
    Thank you!
  • adamsmith
    I'd have to double-check, but are you sure this isn't the case already for CMoS? If you have the same person listed in Zotero as editor and translator you should get ed. and trans. - at least in a situation like the two passages from CMoS you cite that _also_ have an author.

    The situation above for MLA, where there is no separate author is trickier, looking at this again we may actually not be able to do that without also having editor and translator appear before the title when they're different persons.
  • cmagri2
    edited March 26, 2013
    are you sure this isn't the case already for CMoS?
    No, it isn't: In Zotero, for a book with "Doe, John" as both editor and translator, and no author, using "Chicago Manual of Style (author-date)", the output is:

    Doe, John, ed. 2011. Title. Translated by John Doe. Place: Publisher.

    "Chicago Manual of Style (full note)" and "Chicago Manual of Style (note)" both print:

    Doe, John, ed. Title. Place: Publisher, 2011.
  • adamsmith
    but those aren't the examples in the two Chicago sections you point to, both of which do have an author.
    I'm aware that this isn't the case for books with no author, but as I say that may not be possible to do - but there is also no example in the CMoS on this and I can't really see how such an example would look like.
    The Augustine example used for MLA above should - going by CMoS 14.265 - have Augustine listed as an author (I wonder if that wouldn't be the right way in MLA as well).
  • adamsmith
    having looked at the original example:
    That book should be cited with Augustine as the author. That's how it's in library catalogs: http://lccn.loc.gov/97038751 and, of course, Augustine is, in fact the author.
    When there is an author, both MLA and CMoS will correctly specify "ed. and trans." (or Edited and Translated by)
  • cmagri2
    You’re probably right about the Augustine book: If there’s an author, s/he should appear as such.

    I'm looking at cases such as CMoS 15.35:

    Silverstein, Theodore, trans. 1974. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Now, if Silverstein happened to be editor, too, it should probably read

    Silverstein, Theodore, ed. and trans. 1974. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    instead of

    Silverstein, Theodore, ed. 1974. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. by Theodore Silverstein. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    The reason I mentioned 14.215 and 14.265 was only to show that the combination "ed. and trans." does appear in CMoS, as does, by the way, "trans. and ed.".
  • malczyk
    For the Augustine book: according to MLA, "If your citations are mostly to the translator's comments or choice of wording, begin the entry with the translator's name, followed by a comma and the abbreviation trans. ("translator"), and give the author's name, preceded by the word By, after the title." (5.5.11)

    My entry was a workaround that failed to include the "By" part, because as far as I can tell there is no way to do that in Zotero. I will need to manually add it (to this and a number of other similar entries in my bibliography) so that it will conform to MLA style, which should look like this:

    Dyson, R. W., ed. and trans. The City of God Against the Pagans. By Augustine. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought.

    If there is any way to solve any/all of these problems, it would be much appreciated!
  • adamsmith
    I don't think there's much we can do for that, no.
    I understand why it makes sense to have rules like "if your citations are mostly to the translator's comments..." but it's not something that lends itself to automation.
    The ed. and trans. issue could theoretically be automated, but it'd require significant changes to CSL (the problem is that you only want the editor and translator listed first when they're the same person, _not_ when they're different people in which case you'd probably only want the editor listed before the title) and considering that you're the first person in six years to ask about this (in the position at the beginning of the citation - as I say this is no problem for books that have the author listed first) I'm not sure, frankly, if it's worth it.
  • malczyk
    Ok, thank you for your help!
  • cmagri2
    I might be missing something here, but doesn't csl have an "editortranslator" role, and couldn't it be used for this very purpose?

    I do agree that cases of editor and translator being the same person, with or without author, do not seem to occur too frequently. Still, among possible combinations, this is probably the most common one.

    And, let's face it, neither

    Roe, Richard. 2011. Title. Edited by John Doe. Translated by John Doe. Place: Publisher.

    nor

    Doe, John, ed. 2011. Title. Translated by John Doe. Place: Publisher.

    look exactly pretty, or professional, do they?
  • adamsmith
    The problem with the editor translator role is that - as I say above - if there are different editors and translator it will both print them. That's not a problem for your first example, which is why it's possible to do that (it should be implemented in Chicago style - is it not?). I.e.

    Roe, Richard. 2011. Title. Edited and Translated by John Doe. Place: Publisher.

    is possible and that's what the editortranslator label is for.


    We could to
    Doe, John, ed. and trans. 2011. Title. Place: Publisher.

    But the problem is that that would also create

    Doe, John, ed. and Doe, Jane, trans. 2011. Title. Place: Publisher.
    Instead of
    Doe, John, ed. 2011. Title. Translated by Jane Doe. Place: Publisher.
  • cmagri2
    First, using the most recent "Chicago Manual of Style (author-date)" style file, what I get is:

    Roe, Richard. 2011. Title. Edited by John Doe. Translated by John Doe. Place: Publisher.

    So, at least in this style, roles are currently not combined.

    Second, I'm afraid I fail to see the problem with "Doe, John, ed. and Doe, Jane, trans." you mention: I assume there's some routine in place that checks whether editor(s) and translator(s) are identical and, if so, transfers the content of these variables to editortranslator. Thus, if editortranslator is defined, its content is used for formatting, resulting in

    Doe, John, ed. and trans. 2011. Title. Place: Publisher.

    If it isn't, editor and translator are used separately, as before:

    Doe, John, ed. 2011. Title. Translated by Jane Doe. Place: Publisher.

    If the above is correct, I don't see how output like the following could ever result:

    Doe, John, ed. and Doe, Jane, trans. 2011. Title. Place: Publisher.
  • adamsmith
    Right - this is correct in the other Chicago styles, but no one ever fixed that up in the author- date style, I'll try to get around to that.

    As for the other issue, there is really no reason to assume things. CSL is well documented so if you don't believe me (and I promise you I'm right about this), you can just read the specifications
    http://citationstyles.org/downloads/specification.html
  • adamsmith
    Roe, Richard. 2011. Title. Edited and translated by John Doe. Place: Publisher.
    is now fixed for Chicago (author-date)
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