Prefix/Suffix: forcing quotation mark styles and the use of HTML

Oby
(Introductory note: all HTML examples in this post is written with an extra space so that it is not interpreted as formatting by the forum software.)

I am writing a PhD thesis in LibreOffice, using Zotero for Firefox and the OSCOLA style. It is a footnote style, which is hard-set to English(UK) as a locale. This means that changes to the Firefox locale do not affect locale-specific formatting -- including the style of quotation marks.

This is fine for the formatting of the citations themselves. However, my problem is that also quotation marks in text in prefix/suffix fields are converted to single (UK) quotation marks. Since all the rest of my actual quotes are in double quotation marks (except for the titles of certain cited items, which according to OSCOLA shall be in single quotation marks) this is unfortunate. As far as i can discern, OSCOLA only requires single quotation marks for the citations (notably journal article and document titles), not any other text in the footnotes.

Usually, this is easily worked around. I just write text before/after the "grey" Zotero field with the citation. Yet, there is one problem remaining: OSCOLA always inserts a period (.) after every citation (group).

Overriding this is only possible between multiple citations, by using the prefix field of the subsequent citation. (This "trick" is likely not well known, and I only found out after extensive searching here -- it should probably be added somewhere in the wiki.) Suffixes therefore have to be input using Zotero's suffix field.

I am thus stuck with single quotation marks in the (admittedly few) occasions when I have to quote something in a suffix. For example:
In contrast to Shany (n 151) 35, who pays 'particular attention to unstated goals'.
What I really want to achieve is this:
In contrast to Shany (n 151) 35, who pays "particular attention to unstated goals".
I have tried using HTML in the suffix field in order to achieve this intended result. However, none of the HTML entities tried (“ ” and “ ”).

My question is thus:
Does a workaround exist?

Another, related question:
Are there other HTML tags or entities than < b> < /b> and < i> < /i> that work in the prefix and suffix fields?
  • adamsmith
    My question is thus:
    Does a workaround exist?
    Hardcoding the single quotation marks into a custom version of the style (as prefix suffix to the title rather than via quotes="true" and then either setting the style to en-US or adding double quotation marks in the locale terms) would work. Nothing simpler than that.
    Another, related question:
    Are there other HTML tags or entities than < b> < /b> and < i> < /i> that work in the prefix and suffix fields?
    afaik only styling that CSL reads within fields, i.e. the three others listed here: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/rich_text_bibliography
  • Oby
    edited July 22, 2016
    Thanks for the quick and useful clarification!

    I only have one thing to add, to help others:
    If we are first to make custom alterations to the style, another way of achieving this would be to omit the final period. If so, it would be possible to add prefix and postfix text outside the Zotero field. In other words,using the word processor plugin only for the citation itself.

    Note that this will remove periods on all citations. It will thus only be useful for those that can stomach inserting all periods manually. Adamsmith's solution is more elegant.
  • fbennett
    Using different quotation conventions in citations and text seems an odd practice. Is that combination a formal style requirement?
  • Oby
    @fbennett: The thing is that OSCOLA is strictly a referencing style. See the style guide, which is very meager, which has nothing to say about the style of quotation marks or anything else outside the references themselves: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/oscola_4th_edn_hart_2012.pdf

    OSCOLA is also a standardized style, which is used by journals and publishing houses across the globe, e.g. in UK, US, continental Europe and Oceania.

    This means that elsewhere you follow the conventions for the style of English that you are using. Since I write my texts in US English, that means double quotation marks in the main text, and in footnote text that is not strictly references.
  • fbennett
    I guess what I'm asking is whether a publisher has asked for that combination.
  • Oby
    I don't have a concrete example of a book at hand now (away from the office), but as you can see the OUP house style allows for both US and UK styles when writing, with their respective quotation mark standards: https://global.oup.com/academic/authors/author-guidelines/house-style/?lang=en&cc=gb

    Nevertheless, OUP requires OSCOLA for law books.
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