Government documents: personal authors

taylo469
I am having the same struggle as jardiel in this thread (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3739/thesis-writing-tips-tricks-troubles-or-testimonies-for-doing-it-with-zotero/) to create a citation that incorporates personal authors for government documents. As a workaround, I've used the "Reports" document type and insert the agency's name in the "Author" field and the personal author's name in the "Institution" field. However, I wanted to check to see if there was a more formal way of doing this in Zotero.
  • adamsmith
    I guess it'd be possible to do this in the citation style itself, but it'd take some tweaking. Which style is this for?
  • taylo469
    edited August 18, 2013
    For me, personally, I am using APA. The user, jardiel, in the thread I linked to was using MLA. Both styles are pretty similar in incorporating agency authors and personal authors in the citation, so any solution that works for one may work for the other.

    APA - http://library.wlu.edu/research/ref/cite_apa_govt.asp
    MLA - http://www.unk.edu/academics/library.aspx?id=61076
  • adamsmith
    I'm not convinced this is really required, though? In MLA style, they seem to be happy just having the personal authors up front _or_ including them in the title of the report, both of which is obviously possible.

    I see where they mention personal authors for APA, but is that actually in the manual, or is that something they're making up? I'm always skeptical if I see claims that something is APA without explicit reference to page nos. in the manual.

    (Thinking about this, it'd actually probably not be possible currently, at least not easily, as we also use report e.g. for working papers, for which you definitely want the personal author first).
  • dowcet
    In Chicago style, there is definitely a problem here. I haven't even found an acceptable work-around yet, but I'll have to keep trying I guess :(
  • adamsmith
    sorry, could you elaborate? I don't see any such rules in the Chicago Manual. If something has an author, you treat that person as its main author best I can tell. That certainly applies to any of the relevant section on reports and government reports.
  • fbennett
    edited August 17, 2014
    CMS 14.69 does seem very clear:
    1. Author: full name of author(s) or editor(s) or, if no author or editor is listed, name of institution standing in their place
  • dowcet
    edited August 18, 2014
    Hmm, CMS 14.69, does say "if" and "in their place". But also see CMS 14.281 regarding legal and public documents, which says to follow the style of the Bluebook.

    I don't have a copy of the Bluebook handy, but I was looking at these examples: http://libguides.radford.edu/content.php?pid=49958&sid=366938
  • adamsmith
    that refers to the 15th editions of the Manual. They've changed things since.
    Frank, could you check Bluebook on this?
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