Turabian Comma Missing

I'm using Turabian 8th edition (full note) style. In the footnote:

William Arndt et al., eds., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 326.

from resource:

Arndt, William, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, eds. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

It is missing a comma in the footnote citation after the first editor's name. It should read:

William Arndt, et al., eds., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 326.

I know this is minor, just a major inconvenience.

I'm using Zotero 5.0.44 on a Mac with the MS Word plugin for MS Word 2017.
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  • are you sure about that? I don't have Turabian here, but in the Chicago Manual that's without comma (see CMS17, 14.76 http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/book/ed17/part3/ch14/psec076.html )
  • You know, thanks for pushing back a little bit, adamsmith. I think I'm finding that the comma is one of the few places my institution requires a deviation from Turabian. Please disregard my request. Thank you.
  • edited April 15, 2018
    Do you know how I can get rid of the space between the accessed date and the website (URL) info like seen in the sample below? Thanks for any help.

    Phil Towne, “Spirituality in an Age of Technology,” Stone-Campbell Journal 17, no. 2 (September 2014): 195–205, accessed January 31, 2018
    http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLAiBCA160516001903&site=ehost-live.
  • sorry, not clear what you're referring to. The fact that the URL goes into a new line? That's just how linebreaks work
  • Yes, Adam, that is what I was talking about, How the URL has a space and then goes into a new line. I need to find out how to eliminate that space. Some of the other journal articles that I have saved from the same online library, do not have that space when I cite them and they generate the Turabian footnote. Any ideas how to eliminate it? Thank You!
  • Here is one of my citation footnotes in Turabian without the URL space. How can I get it to look like this every time? Thanks for your Help

    David Garic, “Are Leaders Born or Made?,” Supervision 67, no. 12 (December 2006): 19–20, accessed March 20, 2017, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ofm&AN=510677316&site=ehost-live.
  • There's a space in the second example, too. The different is just how Word handles linebreaks in URLs, there's nothing you can do in terms of Zotero (though I'm surprised by the URL above. I'd expect that to have a ?, too, and I think Word splits after question marks generally)
  • Ok, so as far as you know, there is nothing I can do to eliminate space/linebreak?
    I might have to just take the points off from my professor on my paper, because now I have to much time invested in using Zotero (which is awesome and I can't tell you thank you enough for). I could go back and manually re-cite my paper in word, nah!
  • The space in my second example does not show up that way in my paper, just when I copied and pasted it here.
  • One thing is that I'm still not sure I understand what you're saying. A "space" has a very specific meaning in typography, i.e. what you get when you hit the spacebar once (e.g. the "space" between two words). That would definitely be between accessed date and URL and it would have to be -- they'd look wrong otherwise. If you're referring to something else, you'd have to specify that, either by describing it in more detail or by taking a screenshot, uploading it somewhere like imgur.com or Dropbox and linking to it.

    But if you're really just talking about whether a URL starts in a newline or not, that's not something that Zotero does but something that Word does. Linebreaks are automated in Word. You can try manually pasting that same citation into Word and you'll find that it looks the same. It treats the URL, just like it would a very long word. I very much doubt that that's actually considered wrong in any reference style, but if you are worried, you can manually insert soft linebreaks (shift+return) in the URL. I'd consider that a bad idea for referencing and I'd be surprised that's what your professor wants but it's possible if you must.
  • Screen Shot 2018-03-26 at 8.05.31 PM
  • (you can't post screenshots here; you'll need to upload them somewhere else & link)
  • please ignore the first dropbox
  • Hitting the (shift + Return) in the URL didn't bring the lines or page breaks closer.
  • For the second footnote -- this is exactly what I say above. Word treats the URL as a single long word, so puts it in a new line. This has nothing to do with Zotero; it's also just not incorrect. I'm pretty sure that splitting the URL with shift+enter (e.g. after .aspx? ) will work, but in terms of referencing, it really is a bad idea as it would e.g. mean that copying&pasting the link will no longer work.

    I'm a little puzzled why you're so convinced this is wrong? Have you gotten comments to that extent from your professor?
  • Yes, my professor, the Turabian Nazis, says the second footnote is wrong according to Turabian and I must delete the new line space. Thanks for your help, Adam, I really appreciate it.
  • could you say exactly what the problem is? The empty line between the footnotes or the distribution of lines in the second footnote?
    The empty line probably _is_ incorrect, but that's not what you seem to be referring to?
  • Thanks to you, I was able to move part of the line, when Isplit the URL with shift+enter (e.g. after .aspx? ). Below is my new screen shot, how would I move the rest of the line together to close the gap?
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/obms1rb54wbujp7/Screen Shot 2018-04-14 at 11.05.05 PM.png?dl=0
  • basically, I need the second footnote to look like the first footnote on the page I screenshotted you.
  • You want the URL to wrap at the end of the line, rather than at the first space or soft newline?
  • edited April 15, 2018
    So first, I want to be clear that your professor is wrong. See the 1st Newspaper example citation on the Turabian example page here:
    http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/turabian/turabian_citationguide.html
    (Chicago Manual, on which Turabian is based, is very explicit about this:
    It is generally unnecessary to specify breaks for URLs in electronic publication formats with reflowable text, and authors should avoid forcing them to break in their manuscripts
    see CMS 14.18, my emphasis

    But if you have to, you can make the 2nd line longer by inserting the soft return (that's what shift+enter is) somewhere else in the URL, e.g. after one of the & instead of after the .aspx?
  • See the Journal article in the sample link you shared from Kate L. Turabian 8th edition, that is the guide I am supposed to use. My footnote is a journal article, I think it shows the URL together.
  • You have been very helpful Adam, I appreciate your response and quick response time. I see the many forums and discussions, that you are very busy. Thanks for your time. I recommend Zotero to as many students and writers as I can!
  • What adamsmith is saying is that you should just let your word processor break the URL across lines however it is going to, rather than trying to control where it breaks. This is what the Chicago manual very clearly specifies.
  • OK, we'll leave it here but just to be clear, the difference between the journal article and the newspaper article on the Turabian website is exactly the same as the difference between your 1st and 2nd footnote: The URL for the journal article -- and in your first footnote -- is short enough to fit in the line.
    For your second footnote (and the Newspaper article on the Turabian page), there's just not enough space. There's nothing you, Zotero, or anyone else can do about that.
  • Correct, that is why my professor says that I shouldn't rely on a citation machine like this, because you cant control the info being put in. I am going to let Zotero do what Zotero does and if I get docked, I get docked. I sincerely appreciate your help. Thank you to bwiernik, too!
  • Manually inserting a line break in a URL will lead to that URL not being clickable or to a publisher likely making an error in typesetting. You should never modify a URL when including it in a reference list, and your professor is wrong to suggest otherwise.
  • Zotero is not inserting a line break but is wrapping the URL st an acceptable place in the string. Does your prof want you to force a line break before the URL so that it starts on a new line? That shouldn't be necessary and violates the true Turabian style but some professors imagine their own idea of bibliographic styles. A modern word processor or pdf reader will allow wrapped URLs to connect to the appropriate location.

    The problem is not related tothe use of Zotero or some other bibliography construction software but the number of characters allowed on a printed line and the number of characters contained in the URL. Even if you were typing by hand without the assistance of Zotero, the URL wrap problem would still exist.

    It _might_ be helpful to ask during office hours what your professor's preference is for handling cases where the URL is too lengthy for the available space on the remainder of the line. (I know of one who has a rule concerning allowing wrapping depending upon how many characters exist on the line before the start of the URL.) Realize that you can try to accommodate the desire of your professor by hand editing the manuscript after you have removed the Zotero field codes. It is also important to know the penalty for not following the professor's idea of an appropriate style. One professor I know insists that students use APA version 4 not the current version 6. Sources not accommodeted by version 4 are not acceptable. It can be dangerous to follow the attitude "...if I get docked, I get docked". These two professors have "docked" students one or even two letter grades for bibliographic infractions alone based on the idea that not following instructions means the student has poor attention to detail.
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