uncited entry in bibliography

Philipp.Nuske
Hi,

following setting:

- a colleague copied a paragraph containing citation [6] into a new document.
- He replaced citation [6] with citation [5]
- However, citation [6] still shows up in the bibliography.
- Searching for "[6]" in the whole document only gives the bibliography as a result -> it really is not cited, but shows up in bibliography!

so far tried:
- remove bibliography and re-insert -> no use
- edit bibliography -> remove citation -> warning that it was cited. But it is not!

Any help is greatly appreciated!

In our use-case, copy-and-modify happens frequently. Therefore, we need to totally rely on Zotero to work in that regard!

Thanks

Philipp
  • noksagt
    Have you tried removing the inserted paragraph completely and then rebuilding the bibliography? This should be done in a version where no manual edits gave been made to the bibliography. Also name sure it really isn't cid elsewhere in the document.

    If you can verify it was not cited outside of the psated paragraph, it seems like the most likely scenario is that the field that contains the citation was not actually removed completely.

    Also: what we're the steps taken to "replace" the citation?
  • Philipp.Nuske
    thanks for the answer!

    I made sure that the document "[6]" is not cited anywhere else:
    I use a numeric citation style. Therefore, the number in brackets [] shows up for the citation and in the bibliography.

    If it was cited, a "[6]" showed up in the text. I searched for "[6]" but only got results in the bibliography.
    => I am sure it is not cited any more!

    How can a field not be removed completely? And how can I (prefereably automatically) find such a thing?
  • noksagt
    Again: what were the steps taken to "replace" the citation?

    Also note that most styles condense numbering. Your approach would not find e.g. [3,6] or [4-8].

    Read from the first citation of 5 until the first citation of 7 in detail. Use the reveal codes function in your word processor to see if there are stay fields.
  • Philipp.Nuske
    edited April 20, 2016
    I found the misbehaving paragraph:

    If I delete everything in the whole document, except that one citation, I still get two entries in the bibliography. ... Removing that last citation (the document consists of a newline by now) oddly still results in a bibliography with one entry.

    This citations seems to point to two database entries.

    However, if I re-insert this citation from scratch it only causes one entry in the bibliography.

    I really need to solve this problem generally, in order to make Zotero for our company, therefore help is greatly appreciated!

    p.s.: I am trying to find out the steps for replacing :-)
    p.p.s: no condensed citations occured
  • Philipp.Nuske
    OK the reveal codes function actually revealled sth:
    this citation actually is two citations.
    But how can this happen?
  • Philipp.Nuske
    this is the offending code (well I censored the titles of the actual documents :-) )


    { ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"sj63U5RI","properties":{"formattedCitation":"[1]","plainCitation":"[1]"},"citationItems":[{"id":212,"uris":["http://zotero.org/groups/473296/items/9ZFUDQ64"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/groups/473296/items/9ZFUDQ64"],"itemData":{"id":212,"type":"report","title":"CENSORED","issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",3]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} }{ ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"fDysgOFn","properties":{"formattedCitation":"[6]","plainCitation":"[6]","dontUpdate":true},"citationItems":[{"id":224,"uris":["http://zotero.org/groups/473296/items/GBU5MGJQ"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/groups/473296/items/GBU5MGJQ"],"itemData":{"id":224,"type":"report","title":"CENSORED2","issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",3]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} }
  • noksagt
    edited April 21, 2016
    If the intended change was to edit which item was cited, it'd be best to use the "Add/Edit Citation" button, which would allow you to remove the item and then add a new one.

    EDIT: I missed the dontUpdate tag. This is likely an instance of user error.
  • Philipp.Nuske
    If this happens more frequently, any form of detection would be greatly appreciated.

    Consumer acceptance in our use case will strongly tend towards zero, if I tell them: "Just look at the code. There should not be any }{ " ;-)

    But the most pressing problem:
    In this case the brokenness did not show! A perfectly fine looking entry showed up in the bibliography. This entry could only be identified as being wrong because my colleague manually checked.

    However, our main reason for using Zotero is its ability to automatically generate a Bibliography which does not need checking.

    Therefore, I would consider this a serious bug. How can I help in removing it?

    Thanks
  • adamsmith
    I'm pretty sure the author would have gotten a message about keeping modifications to a citations. That's what the "dontUpdate" property in the citecode means. When authoring in a numeric style, the answer to that prompot should _always_ be to not keep the modifications.
  • Philipp.Nuske
    As always, the user will say "I didn't do anything" :-)

    I was also curious about that "dontUpdate". However, I could not reproduce the bug myself. Therefore, I cannot say for sure, what the author did or did not see.

    My main point:
    Is it possible to automatically detect this behaviour after it has happend? Or even better: make it technically impossible?

    Although the user might have clicked the wrong button, the result is for sure _always_ undesired (one citation causing two entries).

    Further suggestions are highly welcome.
  • noksagt
    edited April 21, 2016
    There are certainly edge cases where one may want a customized citation that has multiple bibliographic entries. Assuming this was because the user modified the citation from within the zotero word processor plugin, it is not an easy problem. How do you differentiate between a knowledgeable user making an intentional decision and one who "clicked the wrong button"?

    Automatic searching of the document for dontupdate fields is possible, but this seems like it'd muddy the interface and is something that would be better suited for a troubleshooting document unless we can replicate the issue and show this is more than an isolated (albeit frustrating) instance.
  • Philipp.Nuske
    The thing making me nervous is, that I cannot know whether the document needs troubleshooting. Except by testing each number in the bibliography whether it was cited. Getting rid of this very process is a main reason for introducing Zotero in our company :-(

    What to do?

    I could test, whether this ever happens again. But then, how do I know, whether it has happened?
  • noksagt
    If Zotero did something other than what a user told it to do, then there would be a bug to fix.

    But the current understanding is that this likely occurred because someone used the citation editor and Zotero worked as designed to allow those changes to be made.

    Unless there is evidence that it occurred some other way, this is best resolved by discouraging the use of the citation editor without understanding exactly what this does.
  • Philipp.Nuske
    Hm, and by "citation editor" you mean the "Edit Bibliography" Button?

    I can see your argument that this is not a bug.

    Can you see that it is highly desirable for me to spot this behaviour (one citation pointing to two entries) in a more straight forward way?

    I hope, I can convince people to give Zotero another try, given that the first shot of a "user" lead into unexpedted behaviour ;-)
  • jessriedel
    I'm having a similar issue with uncited items appearing in the bibliography. The attitude adopted by noksagt, and the decision to make these problems extremely difficult to troubleshoot in order to avoid muddying the interface, has convinced me that I should never ever use the Word plugin for Zotero again.
  • quim
    I had -and solved- the same issue. It was my fault but I didn't noticed for a while.

    a) I was adding an additional citation to a formatted document, but I used the wrong Zotero (second) icon. It happened after not being using zotero after 4 weeks. Be aware !

    b) I clicked in [ Add/Edit Bibliography ] in place of [ Add/Edit Citation ] in the paragraph. Surprise: No citation was inserted in the body of the text. I kept working in other paragraph (thinking for a refresh). The citation appeared in the bibliography section but not in the body section where I added it.

    c) As a result, I had 11 citations in the bibliography but only 10 real citations in the body. The 11th cannot be removed by clicking in [ Add/Edit Citation]

    d) After expending 30' clueless (I tried swapping several styles, looking for hidden data, ...), I just 'visualized' that -maybe- I did something stupid (as clicking in the wrong icon [ Add/Edit Bibliography ]. I have clicked and confirmed the wrong action with !!

    e) It was solved just by clicking in [ Add/Edit Bibliography ] and removing the wrong item (the citation). Solved.

    Proposal : [ Add/Edit Bibliography ] is much less used than [ Add/Edit Citation ]. A better position or better label text in will help to avoid errors.


    ps. I always use the 'Classic '3 columns' interface' in my huge database.
    I have promised that this will never happen again to me. I am using dark chocolate in order to reinforce my zotero training.
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