Field level prefix and suffix

mronkko
I would like to request a field level suffix and prefix.

Usually the prefix should address all sources in a field. For example (e.g. M Ronkko, 2010, M Ronkko 2008). The problem is that if I change the document to a citation style where the older source comes first, the current implementation would results in the following field content (M Ronkko, 2008, e.g. M Ronkko 2010)
  • RintzeRintze
    Just a thought, but how about adding an "suppress brackets" option in addition to "suppress author", that strips any square, round or curly brackets set on cs:layout on cs:citation? That way the citation rendered would be reduced to "M Ronkko, 2010, M Ronkko 2008", and you could add the parentheses and "e.g." by hand in the text.
  • mronkko
    I see the point, but this would make it really hard switch between citation styles that use numbers in brackets and styles that use names in parentheses.

    (I have had to do this as well at least once)
  • RintzeRintze
    It could be limited to styles that don't use "citation-number" in their cites.
  • RintzeRintze
    I'm also still wondering if there isn't a way to support rendering of cites like "as discussed by Doe (2002)".

    Maybe the Insert Citation dialog popup could offer an additional pull-down menu with the options:

    (pulldown menu descriptor) "Citation Brackets: "
    - (option) "Suppress"
    - (option) "Exclude Author"

    These options would be mutually exclusive, and "Suppress" (limited to non-numeric styles) would convert "(Doe 2002, 2004)" to "Doe 2002, 2004", and "Exclude Author" (limited to citations with a single cite) would give "Doe (2002)".
  • mronkko
    In my case, the problem with excluding parentheses in the citation would mean that these would need to be manually added to the document. This is not a problem as long as I am using a style with parentheses. If I switched to a style with brackets, I would need to go through the document and change this manually for each citation.
  • RintzeRintze
    Right. I guess there was a reason this is still an open issue.
  • adamsmith
    I think we should keep the two issues - parentheses and affixes - separate. Mronkko's issue has come up before. It's not limited to changing citation styles, but also comes up when you add a new item to a citation that gets placed first.

    Given that one of Bruce's stated goals of CSL was to be able to switch between different citation systems, I don't think Rintze's suggestions are acceptable as a solution here.

    The other issue is the styling of Smith (1776) type citations. Given the amount of confusion and discontent about this, it may be worth reconsidering the statusquo - but probably in a new thread.
  • Alejandro Paz
    "Given that one of Bruce's stated goals of CSL was to be able to switch between different citation systems, I don't think Rintze's suggestions are acceptable as a solution here."

    Can you explain this? As someone who hasn't needed to use a bracket-number style ever, I'd love to be able to suppress parentheses. Or really, the option should be to add parentheses/brackets, and change the default which adds them. I've brought this up previously in a different thread, and it's driving me batty. I have to edit an enormous portion of my cites, because the parentheses come out in the wrong place otherwise. It doesn't make sense. Unless there's a good reason not to, or there's one already, I'm going to make it a feature request.
  • adamsmith
    In a sentence like:
    "Smith (1776) introduces the concept of division of labor"

    "Smith" is _not_ part of the citation - it is part of the sentence. Think of how this would transform to a footnoted (e.g. Chicago) style:
    "Smith1 introduces the concept of division of labor"
    "Smith" stays the same. If you treat "Smith" as part of a citation and convert it to a number, you get
    "1 introduces the concept of division of labor" - i.e. an incomplete and nonsensical sentence.

    Hence the rule: If something is grammatically part of the text, it should be written in the text and not generated by the reference manager.
    Note that if you're editing citations you're doing this wrong, use the suppress author function is for this.
    Please don't make another feature request on this - there are half a dozen threads on this already.
  • Alejandro Paz
    The problem isn't suppressing author, that's great and useful. The problem is that the reference manager generates parentheses, and I'm not sure why this is a necessary default (I do however understand your point). Thus, you have people wanting to suppress the parentheses.

    For many of us writing in the humanities and social sciences, we are qualifying our citations (i.e., not just treating them as indexes of established findings). Like "Smith (1776; cf. Jackson 1830)" or "Throughout his work, Smith argued for the division of labor as a basic economic fact (e.g., 1776)." In both of these cases (and there are many more), I would have to edit the citation in order to get the parentheses to work properly. Or, as I'm currently doing, highlight the parentheses individually, and then delete them. I'm not sure that the conversion to number styles would work seamlessly anyway in this kind of writing.

    Therefore, doesn't it at least make sense to give users the option to change the default setting on using parentheses, toggle it to off, if possible? Then users know that only the name and date, or just date, will appear, and they can write whatever else they like around it. Then switching between one parenthetical citation + bibliography style to another isn't an issue. (Btw, ProCite also had a way to suppress date, in cases where the citation was already completed, but one wanted to make sure it was included in the bibliography.)

    I guess another way, less user-friendly probably, is to have instructions on re-writing the styles to not include parentheses.
  • adamsmith
    both of your examples can be generated w/o editing citations. More later.
  • Alejandro Paz
    Thanks so much, I'll wait for the reply, but here's a somewhat more complex case I run into frequently to also consider: "Many theorists of the division have labor have pointed to its persistence over time (often invoking Smith 1776 as a starting point for the theories; e.g., Jackson 1830)." I.e., in this last case, the parentheses are opened as part of the rhetoric, and then the citations go inside as well without further parentheses or bracketing.

    Thanks again.
  • adamsmith
    OK, let me take two of your examples (btw. both Bruce and I are social scientists, so we deal with these types of things in our own work all the time):
    1. Many theorists of the division have labor have pointed to its persistence over time (often invoking Smith 1776 as a starting point for the theories; e.g., Jackson 1830)
    Text: Many theorists of the division have labor have pointed to its persistence over time
    Insert Citation with two items: Smith 1776 and Jackson 1830.
    For the Smith cite, add
    prefix: "often invoking "
    suffix: " as a starting point for the theories"
    For the Jackson cite add
    prefix: " e.g., "
    Note that in citations with multiple cites, you can assign a prefix and suffix to each individual cite.

    2. Smith (1776; cf. Jackson 1830)"
    Text: Smith
    Create citation with two items, Smith 1776, Jackson 1830;
    For the Smith, check suppress author.
    If the style sorts alphabetically in citations, check "Keep items sorted"
    For Jackson, add
    prefix: " cf. "

    See here for details:
    http://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_usage#quick_format_citation_dialog
  • Alejandro Paz
    Again, thanks very much. I see that it can be done without editing, but I have to admit this isn't very satisfactory. For the following reasons:

    (1) In the above, you wrote that there is the following rule: "If something is grammatically part of the text, it should be written in the text and not generated by the reference manager." But here, material that is part of the text is being introduced (if not generated) through the reference manager. This isn't intuitive at all.

    (2) As one result of this, if I am editing the writing, I cannot just go and edit inside the parentheses, but now need to open the Zotero dialogue in each case, pushing things back and forth between prefixes and suffixes. This problem is multiplied if I am giving/getting comments and suggestions to/from a colleague, and use "tracked changes." Yes, it could be done, I suppose, but I can't help but feel that I'd like at least the option to manage the parentheses around citations in my documents without recourse to the reference manager.

    (3) It is still not intuitive why parentheses are added as a default. For those who switch between radically different output styles, this could be added like an automatic prefix/suffix for each insertion (I realize that I'm writing naively, not knowing what coding is like). But why is it default?

    So I still wish/pray for an option to change the default insertion of parentheses in a future update. Just my two cents.

    Thanks for the help.
  • adamsmith
    I think you're pretty alone with this particular request. And just to re-iterate: This is not because I don't know how parenthetical citations are used - I have a dissertation and multiple articles in various parenthetical styles authored with Zotero. I know adding an option sounds like it has no downsides, but apart from the fact that it needs to be coded, included in the CSL processor, integrated in the GUI etc., overloading software with options makes it less user friendly.

    If you really don't like the parentheses, though, they are _very_ easy to remove in a custom version of any style.
    See here for general instructions:
    http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step
    Specifically, in all parenthetical styles, you'll see a line that's more or less like this:
    <layout prefix="(" suffix=")" delimiter="; ">

    deleting prefix="(" suffix=")" will give you the same citation style w/o parentheses.
  • fbennett
    edited March 31, 2012
    if I am editing the writing, I cannot just go and edit inside the parentheses, but now need to open the Zotero dialogue in each case, pushing things back and forth between prefixes and suffixes.
    In Zotero 3.0, you can edit the affixes directly in the word processor. If you then edit the citation through the plugin, the change will be overwritten, but you will receive a warning to that effect.
    tracked changes
    At one time, tracked changes caused difficulties for Zotero, but I think Simon has done some work on this recently.
    It is still not intuitive why parentheses are added as a default.
    I don't follow you here. When parentheses are used, it is because they are dictated by the citation style. The cases you want the system to handle are special-case variants that are on the borderline between main text and citation elements. There is a tendency (for all of us) to focus on our own local requirements, but Zotero is a tool for general use, and we need to be careful that changes to increase efficiency in one environment (by saving typing, in this case) do not affect usability in others (by adding special-purpose options to the UI that might confuse those who don't need or use them).

    This is not to dismiss your suggestions; you have raised use cases that haven't figured in past discussions of the text/citation boundary (at least I don't remember them being raised). Several layers of the system are affected by this (word processor plugins, Zotero, the citation processor, the CSL language). It's a hard problem and movement will be (and should be) slow and deliberate; but the devs read all of these posts to the forum, and are certainly aware of the requirements.

    In the shorter term, if you find yourself removing parentheses more often than not, it is certainly possible to modify a style to omit them, and add them by hand as affixes where they are needed.
  • RintzeRintze
    If something is grammatically part of the text, it should be written in the text and not generated by the reference manager.
    It might have been brought up before, but shouldn't we distinguish between the string generated by the reference manager and the string representing the field code (which can be a substring of the former)?

    E.g., if I want to write "as discussed by Doe et al. (1999).", I need to 1) select the "Suppress Author" box (which generates a field "(1999)", 2) write out the author name(s) while making sure I adhere to the et-al abbreviation rules of the style and 3) italicize et al. if required. This has been a very common procedure in my scientific writing, and is a bit laborious and error-prone.

    Things would be much nicer if the citation manager would generate the entire string "Doe et al. (1999)" when selecting the "Suppress Author" box, and only make "(1999)" represent the field.
  • Alejandro Paz
    I appreciate the discussion and the explanations, including on how to change the styles. I've been using Zotero for a year or so, and one of my goals for the summer is to learn how to change styles. So thanks very much for that.

    "I think you're pretty alone with this particular request."

    Actually, for different reasons, Rintze suggested it near the top of the thread, which is how I got to this thread. I'm not saying that there are tons of users clamoring for this, but, to get to fbennett's comments, I think I do represent a different kind of user who will find it easier to use the plug-in with the option of controlling my own parentheses. And certainly a kind of user that will not find it intuitive to be entering text through a reference manager dialogue. That, I'd wager, goes against pretty much everyone's digital workflow when they start using Zotero. So I guess I am arguing that this is about making Zotero more general, for users that will perceive the text/citation border differently, just because they start using Zotero with different technical habits.

    As you both suggest, I will modify styles in the short term.
  • fbennett
    Things would be much nicer if the citation manager would generate the entire string "Doe et al. (1999)" when selecting the "Suppress Author" box, and only make "(1999)" represent the field.
    I think I understand what you mean, but that would require two field insertions by the plugin, no? That is, an in-text string and a reference, the first of which would be empty in a footnote style. If that's the idea, citeproc-js can generate the two strings, and I think it's also implemented in pandoc/citeproc-hs. Implementing it in Zotero would require an extension to the word processor plugins.
  • RintzeRintze
    Right. Instead of <field>(1999)</field>, the plugin would insert Doe et al. <field>(1999)</field>. So instead of suppressing the author you're placing it outside of the citation field.
  • 7Nrd2Xk3sqBw
    Hello everyone,

    As this thread has been dug out already previously and has very interesting ideas in it, I’ll reply to this one, please tell me if it’s not a good idea.

    Reading through your comments, I have to say that I share the need for the (occasional) suppression of parentheses, and I have seen other cases where it would be useful: for instance, when adding a reference to an image, I would write “Source: xxx, YYYY” and would like the information coming from Zotero without parentheses, without grammar.

    Now, I see the need for a pretty universal solution, that can handle different types of styles transparently.

    One interesting idea has been to add the author as text, but automatically, and the year field behind. This would probably be suitable in many situations. The only problem with this, as generally when you add authors manually in the text, is that the rules on how the formatting of authors will not be respected and adapted to the style.

    Another idea, therefore, might be to tweak the previous solution and to add two separate fields. Rewriting Rintze’s example:

    <field>Doe et al.</field> <field>(1999)</field>

    or, for the usage described above:

    Source: <field>Doe et al.</field>, <field>1999</field>

    It would mean that in terms of user interface, the word processor plugin would allow the suppression of parentheses, the suppression of the author and the suppression of the date (not all at once =D).

    The styles could be “instructed” to always leave in the text those fields where parentheses have been suppressed, thus avoiding problems when changing to footnote citations, for instance. As a consequence, the formatting of the authors and of the date would always be in accordance with the style that is being used, and you could switch from style to style without problem.

    Anyway, just a thought I wanted to share with you.

    In any case, I strongly support the idea of being able to use the Zotero fields more modularly, whichever technical solution is being chosen in the end.

    Have a nice weekend, best,

    7Nrd2Xk3sqBw
  • justinrr
    Looks like this thread has gone far afield from the original poster's question. But I would second the request for a way to specify affixes for an entire field (and not just individual cited references). Adamsmith, you mentioned that this has come up before. Any news on a solution?

    Thanks for the hard work!
  • adamsmith
    nothing new at all, no.
  • sharachchandra
    Just wondering if folks are familiar with the Endnote X5 solution to this problem. They have managed to give an option of formatting the in-text citation as "Doe et al. (1999)" by inserting some comments in the unformatted citation (@@author-year)or something like that. If they can implement this, surely Zotero can also? I agree that extreme cases such as "Doe et al.'s (1999) results..." cannot be addressed, but still, not having to each time check whether the paper was just Doe, or Doe and Smith, or Doe et al. (when one pulls the author outside the brackets) is a huge advantage.
  • fbennett
    @sharachchandra: The original topic of this thread is an outer suffix/affix on the (possibly multiple-reference) citation field. It sounds like what you are proposing is a "suppress-year" or "author-outside-cite" option. Here is a thread where that is discussed:

    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/5282/multiple-intext-citation-patterns/

    (What you are suggesting is technically possible, and a few projects have undertaken to introduce functionality along these lines -- I think the CSL-based pandoc and Docear projects have support for this -- but it is not trivial to implement, and progress in that direction may be slow.)
  • parrenin
    I have encountered the same feature request than the original poster (mronkko): having field prefix and suffix, in addition to reference prefix and suffix.
    The comments have developed into a completely different problem: suppressing parentheses, and have not addressed the original request. It would be good to have this quite simple feature eventually developed. Thanks.
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