General Mcgill Guide problems

lauracbowman
Hello,

I can't seem to find threads on McGill Guide fixes that need to be made, but they are numerous. I'm hoping to start a thread to catalogue these in the hopes that some smart computer person can either make them or explain to me how to do it myself. Given the lack of threads on this I'm also wondering if I'm the only one having these issues and if there is already a fix.

Journal articles
- Needs to have compatibility for McGill Guide abbreviations

Canlii
- Zotero nicely recognizes that statutes and caselaw are legal docs - but it does not correctly import the metadata (for example it routinely puts C instead of SCC as the court)
- Even if you correct the metadata for each document, it does not produce a properly formatted legal citation. I have been forced to manually type the citation out in "extra" and delete all other fields to get it to work.

it seems to me there is something wrong with the original way that Mcgill guide was set up - am I the only one who has these issues?
  • DWL-SDCA
    while this suggestion shouldn't discourage other replies to your request; I recommend that you look at Juris-M, a friendly branch (fork? Extension?) of Zotero designed for citing legal materials in legal documents and with greatly expanded multi-lingual capabilities. Like Zotero it is free. See:
    https://juris-m.github.io

    Juris-M will import your existing Zotero library.
  • bwiernik
    For the Abbreviations, you either need to enter the correct one in the Journal Abbr field (and disable the automatic Medline abbreviation in the Word processor preferences) or use the Abbreviations Filter plugin.

    For import, that might be something that could be fixed, but @adamsmith would have to comment.

    For the formatting of the reference, I think you are running into Zotero's currently limited support for the complexities of legal citations.

    As @DWL-SDCA mentions, your best bet for all of these would be to switch to Juris-M, a version of Zotero with much expanded legal functionality. http://juris-m.github.io
  • adamsmith
    For the import issue could we please get
    1. A URL from CanLii and more details about what's importing incorrectly
    2. On the McGill law side, an example of how this comes out incorrectly and how it should look (with manually corrected data).
  • lauracbowman
    The cases issue seems to be improved now when I try to do it, the citations are much better. One thing that seems to have resolved is the date being included twice, which was an issue previously. There are still a couple minor problems

    Case example
    https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/1998/1998canlii793/1998canlii793.html?autocompleteStr=reference re secess&autocompletePos=1

    How Zotero does it (case name is in ital)
    Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 SCR 217 (C) (available on http://canlii.ca/t/1fqr3).

    - Zotero enters "C" as level of court instead of SCC (or nothing, which would be better because it is already clear from the reporter "SCR" and redundant).
    - it points to canlii as a link, which is generally not done in McGill Guide caselaw
    - although it points to canlii as a link, it does not include the canlii citation: 1998 CanLII 793 (SCC)

    It is appropriate to include the canlii as a parallel citation, but not link. It would be really great if it was possible to turn off the link!
    Neutral citations should go first

    see http://guides.library.ubc.ca/legalcitation/cases

    Citation format:
    Case Name, neutral citation, reporter, parallel citation, court level/jurisdiction and other citation elements **if not obvious/redundant from reporter/neutral citation.**

  • lauracbowman
    Here is another example using the example in the guide

    https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2012/2012scc25/2012scc25.html?autocompleteStr=2012 SCC 25&autocompletePos=1

    how zotero does it (style of cause in ital):
    Cinar Corporation v Robinson, [2012] 2 SCR 55 (SCC) (available on http://canlii.ca/t/frflb).

    Problems: neutral citation omitted, reporter used instead, canlii link provided

    Correct format (style of cause in ital):
    Cinar Corp v Robinson, 2012 SCC 25.

    Neutral citations always include the year of the decision so it would be redundant to cite as follows: Cinar Corp v Robinson (2012), 2012 SCC 25.
  • ChristopherCD
    Hello everyone,

    Thank you so much to those who have created and maintained the McGill Guide style. I don't know if the reason is that I am not using the correct version of the style, but I have noticed small errors regarding secondary sources (journal articles and books).

    When I insert a citation from Zotero to Word, this is what I get:

    Voigt, Christina. “Equity in the 2015 Climate Agreement” (2014) 4:1 Climate Law 50.

    However, based on rule 6.1.1, 8th edition, this is what we should have:

    Christina Voigt, “Equity in the 2015 Climate Agreement” (2014) 4:1 Climate Law 50.

    Switching the order and getting rid of the dot each time is quite annoying, and I wanted to know if this was something that could be fixed easily. The same issue happens when there are multiple authors, or with books.

    Also, regarding edited books (rule 6.2.2.3), this is what I get:

    Richardson, Benjamin J & Stepan Wood, eds. Environmental Law for Sustainability : A Reader (Portland, OR: Hart Pub., 2006).

    However, we should have a comma after "eds":

    Benjamin J Richardson & Stepan Wood, eds, Environmental Law for Sustainability : A Reader (Portland, OR: Hart Pub., 2006).

    Thank you very much !

    Christopher
  • adamsmith
    How exactly are you inserting citations? This looks like bibliography entries to me.
  • ChristopherCD
    Thanks for your reply !

    I am dragging them from Zotero to the Word footnote. Is this the right way, or is there another option ? Sorry if there is !
  • adamsmith
    You'll typically want to use Word integration https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_usage

    You can create footnote citations using shift+drag&drop, but they won't, e.g. adapt given their position in the document, so I wouldn't recommend this.
  • ChristopherCD
    Thanks again for your help. I may give the plugin another try. I remember that I was using it initially, though, and that it had caused another problem (with Firefox or with some other program that I don't remember precisely at this point). At least I learned that I am not inserting my citations in the optimal way !

    Best wishes,

    Christopher
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