Emails

LJAKempthorne
I am using Chicago footnote style and see there is a field for emails in the drop-down menu for item type, but in the bibliography that reference appears as 'Letter to....'. Is there a way that I can correct it to read 'Email to...'? Thank you.
Also, not essential, but do you instructions on how to import the email itself into Zotero? Currently I am just needing to refer to it and don't need full text.
Thank you.
  • adamsmith
    The e-mail item type is a problem, frankly. Use "Letter" instead and type "Email" in the Type field, that works correctly. As for the content of the e-mail, there's no great way to import that, I'd just save it as a .txt or .html file and attach it.
  • aurimas
    edited January 8, 2014
    Also, not essential, but do you instructions on how to import the email itself into Zotero?
    The fields should be fairly self-explanatory. Unless you mean that some fields are missing that are needed for Chicago Manual of Style formatting. Not sure that this is what you're asking for, but you can, for instance, import emails directly from Gmail by going to the Print view and closing the print dialog. It also works on some mailing list archives. (Edit: the contents of the email would be saved as a snapshot if you have that enabled).

    (a bit technical. @adamsmith and other devs) It doesn't look like Zotero currently passes any distinguishing information to the CSL processor for email, instant message, and letter (all "personal-communication"). For letter, you have the "type" field (mapped to "genre" in CSL), but for email and IM that field does not exist. Should Zotero automatically set "type" for these two forms to "email" and "im" (or something similar) respectively? We could also use "medium", which, IMO, is a bit more appropriate and would not clash with letter's "type".
  • adamsmith
    @aurimas and others: see my response above - so I do think type is the right field. I'm generally in favor of doing exactly what you suggest - i.e. for e-mail add e-mail to the type field but:
    - it's not multilingual-compatible
    - and it's potentially quite confusing when things that users don't include anywhere suddenly show up in citations.
  • LJAKempthorne
    Thanks adamsmith - works well now. Good enough, at least.
  • aurimas
    That's sort of why I would say we should rely on the "medium" field instead. The contents of the field would not have to be "multilingual-compatible" because it would just serve standard vocabulary. They would also not show up directly in the bibliography/footnote, but would be used to select proper localized term. Though IIRC, there is currently no way to test field contents, so there goes that idea.
  • adamsmith
    Though IIRC, there is currently no way to test field contents, so there goes that idea.
    yup. :(
  • aurimas
    But frankly, this is a bit of a shortcoming of CSL, since it doesn't provide a way to distinguish these item types that (presumably) require different citation styling/formatting. I recall that testing field content has been discussed as a potential addition to CSL, correct?
  • adamsmith
    Not really, no - parsing fields is a mess because we rely on users to provide specific strings as input, which I (and I think most others) don't think is a good idea (unless they're pull downs or something else that makes sure input is standardized on the ref manager side).

    If we feel we need to handle these as separate item types (and I suppose increasingly we will need to) we'll either need to require standardized field content on input or separate item types.
  • catrina.st
    Hi aurimas,

    "you can, for instance, import emails directly from Gmail by going to the Print view and closing the print dialog."

    Do you mean it is possible to link your emails to zotero in order to store and organise your mail within zotero like you might within programs like "mail" or "outbox"?

    I have tried going to print in firefox with zotero open (if this is what you mean - I'm not real tech savvy, sorry!) however firefox keeps crashing...

    Any help is much appreciated!!
  • aurimas
    What I meant is that you can capture a reference to an email message, which may or may not include an email snapshot (depending on your Zotero settings). Zotero is not meant for organizing your inbox.

    In order to do the above, you would have to go to the print view for the email in Gmail. This can be accessed through the top right menu found at the top of each email message. When you go there, you will get a popup to print the email, but if you cancel it, you will be able to click the Zotero icon in the URL bar.

    I have not experienced any crashes following these instructions. If you are, you will have to describe in more detail what exactly happens (any error messages, etc.) and what exactly you are doing to trigger the crash. Also include all applicable software versions (os, browser, Zotero)
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