How to cite blog posts

kevin31
I have a couple of blog post references in a Zotero collection. When I create my .bib and run in my LaTeX work they don't appear.
So any ideas where i've gone wrong?
or what works for you when you want to cite/referece blog posts.
thanx
  • adamsmith
    the biblatex translator exports blogposts as @online, the bibtex translator as @misc -- why they don't appear in your LaTeX bibliography I can't tell you, that would likely be because of your .bst file and not a question we can answer here.
  • kevin31
    Update - I ran the export again but no success. Then I ran again and the relevant references appear in the bibtex file. After cleaning some stray characters the bib integrated fine.

    However, the references dont look nice, no links and so. I seem to recall that this can done via Zotero. Any Ideas?
  • kevin31
    Adam thanks they are there under @misc. Thanks
  • adamsmith
    yeah - how your LaTeX bibliography looks has (almost) nothing to do with Zotero, so you'll have to figure out the issue with that elsewhere.
  • kevin31
    Yes - thanks. Thinking about it more. It may be down to citation styles in LaTeX. I have changed a few times over the last few years.
    Thanks for your help. I'll check on the LaTex side of things.
  • aurimas
    When you say that your had to clean up some stray characters, was that because Zotero exported them improperly (e.g. didn't escape or something like that)? If so, can you provide an example?
  • kevin31
    yes - on the third export the file had the blog posts. each label had ???? appearing in it. I removed them, if needed then \? \? \? \? would have been the correction. Its no problem and well documented in LaTeX resources as an issue that can arise, irrespective of reference manager package.
    It looks as if i'm okay now having made change to BibLaTeX and changed cite package. Thanks
  • aurimas
    Could you point to a discussion where they mention that ? is problematic in keys (or that it needs to be escaped)? Discussion here suggests otherwise.

    In any case, the question marks will be added by the BibTeX translator if there is no date (so you can just fix that in Zotero). I personally don't like the question mark approach, but changing the export key format at this point is a bit difficult for compatibility reasons.
  • kevin31
    on your second point - its not a hassle - I always edit the 'label' many of my cites might be the same author so i'm heading into that field anyway.
    first point
    http://libguides.mit.edu/content.php?pid=234127&sid=1937425#6
    is the type of reference I meant. There are others.
    I'm okay now so thanks for your help.
  • aurimas
    Right, I understand special character escaping (which, to my knowledge, does not pertain to citekeys), but I've never seen any reference to question mark being problematic in a citekey. So I guess the real question is what are you using to parse the BibTeX file?

    And I understand that this no longer applies to you, so you might not want to waste more time on it, which is fine, but if it's a real issue on Zotero's side, we would want to address it somehow.
  • kevin31
    I'm using Texstudio and I can mail you the bib file (before changes) if it helps. thnx
  • nedasalahshour
    Hi
    In the blog post, what information are we supposed put in the "accessed" section?
  • adamsmith
    That's the accessed date. That should typically be filled automatically, otherwise enter the date you last accessed the page.
  • australianscent
    Hi there,

    Is there a way to have the "accessed" section automatically populate in the citation. Currently, only webpage citations have the accessed date automatically added to the biblio, however, an online news article, say from Washington Post, is not populating the accessed date in the citation.

    Kindly Advise
  • adamsmith
    It's possible, it just depends on the citation style. Some do it, some don't (e.g. Chicago Manual and APA are pretty skeptical of accessed dates)
  • australianscent
    Hi Adam,

    Wow! Thank you so much for getting back so quickly, that was awesome!

    A question for clarity... "Chicago Manual and APA are pretty skeptical of accessed dates" - Does that mean they don't require the date or don't care if it's included, don't trust it?
    I thought it was require for Chicago, if not, even better. Any insight/advise? Thanks
  • adamsmith
    Correct. Chicago Manual says (in 14.7):
    An access date—that is, the self-reported date on which an author consulted a source—is of limited value: previous versions will often be unavailable to readers; authors typically consult a source any number of times over the course of days or months; and the accuracy of such dates, once recorded, cannot readily be verified by editors or publishers. Chicago does not therefore require access dates in its published citations of electronic sources unless no date of publication or revision can be determined from the source
    (Zotero does that 2nd part automatically, too -- so if you don't have a publication date, it does use the access date for online sources instead).
  • australianscent
    Adam! You're the MAN!!!
    thank you, honestly.
    And what a relief to be updated with that piece of information given that I thought I was going to have to add them all in manually.

    Thanks again, You were a tremendous help!
    Cheers
    eddie
Sign In or Register to comment.