MLA suppressing titles inconsistently

carlyosborn
I'm using MLA style with a modification to suppress the author automatically for ibid citations (see my last post).

The problem is, it seems to display the Title of the work in subsequent citations at random. So I have one paragraph which reads:

All dogs are black (Nursery Tales, 13), and cats are white (15).

The next paragraph reads:

Dogs like bones (Nursery Tales, 13), and cats like mice (Nursery Tales, 15).

Why does the book title appear multiple times in one paragraph, but is suppressed in subsequent citations in another paragraph??? This seems weirdly inconsistent. There is no obvious difference between the paragraphs, certainly no interruption by a citation of a different book or anything.

This is driving me crazy. Help appreciated!
  • adamsmith
    could you post the actual paragraphs (you can use ellipses for the text, I care mostly about the citations with a bit of context)? Stylized examples are always prone to hide some important detail.
  • carlyosborn
    Sure, thanks. Here's an example paragraph in which the citation appears in full every time:

    They see themselves ... reactive(Girard, Scapegoat 43) and even ... it affects human relations’(Girard, Scapegoat 43)— the crisis in the physical environmental threatens ... external causes. (Girard, Scapegoat 43)
  • carlyosborn
    At another paragraph, the second of three citations is page number only:

    While in normal times ... counterparts. (Girard, Scapegoat 18) Girard notes .. oppressed’(19)—but that ... possess them’.(Girard, Scapegoat 19)
  • adamsmith
    right, the problem is that this is all the same page number. For CSL purposes, that's "ibid" and not "ibid-with-locator". You can try adding a condition for position="ibid" to the style, very similar to the one you you for ibid-with-locator, see if that works. (You are, btw., sure that MLA would want you to repeatedly point to the same page number?)
  • carlyosborn
    In yet another paragraph, all of the citations are page number only, following the previous paragraph's correct (because of changing back from another book) use of the title, so:

    These persons ‘seem particularly harmful’ (Girard, Scapegoat 14) because ... itself.

    As I have ... aspect’ (13); boundaries ... boundaries (14). These may be ... wake (15).
  • carlyosborn
    OK.
    Yes, apparently I'm supposed to put the page number in each new sentence, even if it's the same number again and again.
    Thankyou for your help. So do I need to copy and paste the same code I added before, but with 'ibid' instead of 'ibid-with-locator', following that first chunk of new code?
  • carlyosborn
    edited April 12, 2015
    [Moved this follow-up question to its own thread]
  • carlyosborn
    For anyone else trying to do this, I appear to have it working by adding the following after my initial extra code:

    <else-if position="ibid">
    <text variable="locator"/>
    </else-if>

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