How to get MLZ Chicago Full Note to use Journal Abbreviations?

Foolslena
Dear Frank and everyone willing to help,

how could I change the MLZ Chicago Full Note Style for Zotero MLZ to get is to use the journal abbreviation field when citing an article as footnote via Word Plug-in? Or - if this would be easier - abbreviate the journal name via the abbreviation filter?

Currently, all article citations contain the full journal name. I guess this is demanded by the Chicago style, but I would like to change it anyway. Neither entering the abbreviation in the "Journal Abbreviation" field nor in the abbreviation filter generates a citation with the abbreviated journal name.

I would like footnotes to cite the abbreviation only and the biography to cite the full name (with the abbreviation in brackets behind if possible).

Thank you for your help!



Thank you
  • fbennett
    I would like footnotes to cite the abbreviation only and the biography to cite the full name (with the abbreviation in brackets behind if possible).
    Abbreviating only in footnotes is easy to set up. I'm not sure what you mean by "in brackets behind". Can you illustrate with a sample?
  • Foolslena
    For example the footnote should read:

    Jack Coe, “From Anecdote to Data: Reflections on the Global Center’s Barcelona Meeting,” J. Int'l Arb. 20, no. 1 [2003]: 11.

    The biography corresponding to this should read something like

    Jack J. Coe, “From Anecdote to Data: Reflections on the Global Center’s Barcelona Meeting,” Journal of International Arbitration [J. Int'l Arb.] 20, no. 1 [2003], pp. 11-20

    So that you know from the biogrpahy which abbreviation corresponds to which full title of a journal.

    Sorry for expressing myself incorrectly and thank you for helping me.
  • fbennett
    I've pushed a change to MLZ Chicago Full Note that will abbreviate journal titles in footnotes.

    I'm less sure about adding bracketed abbreviations to the bibliography. Wouldn't the conventional way to handle that (if anything) be to provide a separate list of journal abbreviations?
  • adamsmith
    I've pushed a change to MLZ Chicago Full Note that will abbreviate journal titles in footnotes.
    just to be clear - as the OP says, this is incorrect Chicago style. I understand s/he want to have that for personal use, but I don't know why you'd push this to all MLZ users?
  • fbennett
    @adamsmith: Thanks for catching me on this. I should have checked the CMS directly. We do use abbrevs for law cases (following Bluebook), but I missed that journals are always to be spelled out in full.

    It's late here, I'll have to think through how to manage variants of the style.
  • Foolslena
    Yes I think what I want is likely not official Chicago Style. However, is it possible to edit the style for my purpose only? Also: I often need to cite cases published in a law journal (and not an "official" reporter). I think it would be weird to have the same journal sometimes spelled out in full, because it refers to an article, and sometimes not because it refers to a case. Is their not a way to use the abbreviation filter a little more independent from the style dictate?
  • fbennett
    edited June 10, 2013
    That's a good point.

    One way to handle this would be to leave the change that I just pushed in place (i.e. to recognize and apply short-form journal title abbreviations), but to recommend that the Abbreviation Filter, rather than the Journal Abbrev field, be used to set the abbreviations. In your work, you could then apply abbreviations consistently to law-related journal titles (and not others). Others with whom you might share your database items would then be able to adjust the behaviour through their own local abbreviation lists.

    I'll leave this open to discussion for a few days. When we arrive at a position, I can add a note to the Errata page on http://citationstylist.org.
  • jinpyue
    Hi, I would like to have something similar, can anyone inform me how to edit an existing Chicago style into using abbreviation of journal title?
  • fbennett
    edited June 18, 2013
    You're on your own for editing the style, but to invoke abbreviations, set form="short" where container-title is rendered. It will look something like this:<text variable="container-title" form="short"/>
    Guidance on editing styles is here:
    https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

    (Edit: if you are relying on the built-in Zotero abbreviation lists for the abbreviated titles, I'm not sure which styles pick them up. If you don't have any joy with a particular style, you can turn that off and use the Abbreviation Filter plugin instead, as an alternative.)
  • jinpyue
    Thanks, I am giving it a try now:)
  • adamsmith
    The built-in abbreviations list is triggered by form="short" set to container-title for journal articles. I believe it contains heuristics for abbreviating journals that aren't in the list itself.
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