First character lowercase ibid?

Letterus
Hello,

for my citation style I use a German translation/abbreviation of the term ibid, which is "aaO." As you can see the first character should be lowercase and the last one uppercase. But Zotero always transforms these characters into "AaO." Is there any way to get the result I would like?

Thanks a lot for your help!
Letterus
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  • fbennett
    Interesting. This may require a tweak in the processor, or in CSL. Let's wait to hear what Sebastian has to say.

    adamsmith?
  • adamsmith
    and that's at the beginning of a footnote/sentence? I've always seen A.a.O. and Ebd. there. (Though I think aaO just needs to go away. No one understands what it means and/or is supposed to be used for anyway).
  • Letterus
    Thanks for your comments. Its common use in German humanities (Geisteswissenschaften) and usually following a "Vgl.", so it's not the start of a footnote or sentence.

    aaO and ebd are clearly distinguished there as well: "Ebd." means same reference AND same page, "aaO." means same reference but different page.

    But however, it's what I need for my Master's thesis, so any help is appreciated. :)
  • adamsmith
    Right, so the problem is the period at the end of abbreviations. That's actually the same issue in English:
    it should be cf. ibid. not cf. Ibid.
    I believe that has come up before--Frank, any thoughts on a solution? I could see uppercasing ibid only when it's at the beginning of a citations and not also after periods.
  • fbennett
    I can certainly take a look. Is it possible to get data and a style that illustrate the problem in context?
  • adamsmith
    Use Chicago Full Note. Insert the same reference twice, immediately adjacent (so that position="ibid"). Add "cf." as the prefix for the second citation.

    Expected outcome: cf. ibid.
    Actual outcome: cf. Ibid.
  • fbennett
    Hmm. But what if the period ends a sentence? We might be able to do it with a heuristic. What sort of rules might work there?
  • adamsmith
    Right, that's why it's in place. But isn't it bad style to use ibid anywhere but at the beginning of a footnote anyway (or in parentheses in a footnotes where a reference is already cited as per 14.29?

    "Many author have long debated this. Ibid." probably should be avoided.

    As for heuristic:
    - List of abbreviations
    - If there is no space in the "sentence" before ibid. (this uses the assumptin that any sentence has at least two words).
  • zuphilip
    The distinction between "aaO" and "ebd." is not always that simple. There exists at least three different interpretations, see German webpage .

    For a concrete example one can look at the free issue http://www.mohr.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Zeitschriften/PDF-Probehefte/2014/ZThK_109_3.pdf and search for "aaO" or "ebd.". IMO a list of abbreviations seems more promising.
  • adamsmith
    edited November 4, 2014
    The distinction between "aaO" and "ebd." is not always that simple. There exists at least three different interpretations, see German webpage .
    exactly. That's why I (and many others) think it shouldn't be used at all. Obviously that doesn't help for a Masters thesis, though.

    The problem with the list is that we'd need this in dozens of languages, which is why I'd like a simpler heuristic if possible.
  • Letterus
    I highly appreciate your considerations and efforts! Thank you very much!

    zuphilip and adamsmith: My point is just about the lowercase first character! This is not about the distinction of "aaO" and "ebd." Of course it would be helpful if Zotero could do this as well, but I'm fully satisfied if I somehow manage a lowercase first character. That's simply because I do not have to use both "aaO" and "ebd", but an uppercase character after an abbreviation would be grammatically wrong. So there's no way to submit a thesis containing such a mistake.
  • zuphilip
    @Letterus: You can change the citation style such that it will always outputs "aaO" and never "AaO". Would this solve your problem?
  • Letterus
    Unfortunately it would not, because quotations are referenced without a preceding word/abbreviation like "Vgl."

    What would be of already great use for my case is a simple heuristic like this:
    A reference with prefix uses "aaO.", a reference without prefix uses "AaO."
  • fbennett
    You can change the citation style such that it will always outputs "aaO" and never "AaO".
    I don't think this is possible in any case, actually.
  • fbennett
    If there is no space in the "sentence" before ibid. (this uses the assumptin that any sentence has at least two words).
    This should work. I'll take a look this weekend. Please ping the thread if I don't post back by Monday.
  • fbennett
    A processor update that adopts the heuristic above is now available. You can try it out by installing the processor patch plugin. The only effect of the plugin is to swap in the most recent version of the processor. The plugin can and should be removed or disabled when the next Zotero release comes out.
  • Letterus
    I just installed it and for my case it works like a charm!

    Thank you very much for your commitment and quick reaction!
  • Skirocco
    Hi all,

    I have read this discussion. I have exactly the same problem like Letterus two month before.
    If there is preceding word like "Vgl."I need "ebd." and if there is no prefix I need "Ebd."

    I tried the processor patch plugin, but nothing happened. I still have already the problem.

    I am using Zotero for Mac with the word plugin and I am excited of the functions of Zotero. A very helpful tool to write my bachelor thesis.

    Is there a possibility to live up to a standard of my university in Germany?

    Many thanks for your support
  • adamsmith
    Which Zotero version are you running exactly?
  • Letterus
    edited January 19, 2015
    Skirocco, if you are using the processor patch (or does the patch exist in the latest release already, adamsmith/fbennett?) and you still get an uppercase "Ebd." then it is most probable that your citation style defines an "capitalize-first" for that element. Maybe you could check that and then come back to this?
  • adamsmith
    the patch should be in the 4.0.25 release, I'm pretty sure, that's why I'm asking.
    The processor plugin doesn't work on Standalone, so that'd explain why it's not working with earlier versions of Zotero.
  • Skirocco
    Thanks for your response.
    I use 4.0.25.3 release of zotero.

    I will change my csl with the notice of Letterus to define a "capitalize-first".
    I will check this.
  • adamsmith
    looks like it didn't make it into the 4.0.25 release, so currently the only way to get this is to use the patch add-on with Zotero for Firefox.

    @fbennett @Dan -- any thoughts on why this isn't in 4.0.25? Did Zotero not use the latest citeproc?
  • Skirocco
    I checked also my csl and I didn't define a "capitalize-first" for this term. There is no text-case define for this term in my csl.
  • aurimas
    Last update was in 4.0.23 to citeproc-js 1.0.543 https://github.com/zotero/zotero/commit/1f4125325679b6c8afd02e03ccf40cda0e7c0b5f
  • adamsmith
    ...which preceded this. So yeah, will need to wait until the next release for Standalone, hopefully then with citeproc update.

    Again, this will already work in Zotero for Firefox with the patch plugin, but won't in Standalone.
  • Skirocco
    Okay,
    then I have to wait for the next release for standalone.
    Hopefully it is coming out before I reached my deadline for my thesis.
    Thank you adamsmith
  • ikarus84
    I'm on version 4.0.26 and the error with "Vgl. Ebd." is back again and it doesn't go away with or without your patch either. Can I help you debug it?
  • fbennett
    edited February 14, 2015
    The citation processor was apparently not upgraded in the Zotero 4.0.26 release (the citeproc-js version is still 1.0.543), so you'll still get the same behavior.

    The processor patch plugin should work, but only in Firefox (not Standalone). If you've tried it with Zotero for Firefox and it doesn't fix the problem, write back and we'll get it sorted out.
  • ikarus84
    edited February 14, 2015
    Indeed I'm on Firefox 35.0.1, MacOS 10.10.2. :)
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