There is the idea for a "classic work" citation that could probably made to look that way -- they're typically cited in a short form in footnotes, too.

Beyond that, if you need something more quickly, it would generally already be possible to do this in a citation style, it's just that you'd have to find a field that's used just of this purpose _and_ available in citation styles (and then this would be a custom citation styles; we wouldn't add this to the standard SBL style).

Thank you both. The "classic work" idea is an interesting one that sounds like it might work and also be beneficial to users of other styles (e.g., Chicago, Turabian). From what you're describing, @adamsmith, it sounds like there'd be a way to specify for this item type the abbreviated footnote content while still allowing a full "normal" bibliography entry?

@adamsmith, am I understanding correctly that the suggestion in your second paragraph is what @bwiernik has also recommended—with the exception that I'd need to find a CSL variable that is used the the SBL style?

I'm happy to learn and use a process that's a bit less obvious, but I'm sorry for my ignorance about how to make this work. Any further guidance you might be able to offer along these lines would be most welcome.

Thank you both so much.

Thank you all so much! It looks like @bwiernik's suggestion is working like a charm so far in the side copy I made of the main SBL style. :-)

Since this is a citation pattern that SBLHS asks for, is this something that would make sense to add back into the main SBL style? Or, is there a better way to handle this situation long-term (e.g., @adamsmith's "classic work" item type or something similar)?

Thank you, again!

I have just realized that, apparently, it is possible to use whatever variabel you like for what you would like to achieve. And the interesting thing is that the variable does not even need to be in the CSL specification.

For example, I have added two variables to the extra field:


shorthand: MB
notbib: true


In a minimal style the citation and bibliography sections look like this:


<citation>
<layout>
<choose>
<if match="any" variable="shorthand">
<text variable="shorthand"/>
</if>
<else>
<names variable="author"/>
<text variable="title" prefix=", "/>
</else>
</choose>
</layout>
</citation>
<bibliography>
<layout>
<choose>
<if match="any" variable="notbib"/>
<else>
<names variable="author"/>
<text variable="title" prefix=", "/>
</else>
</choose>
</layout>
</bibliography>


With this I can use abbreviations instead of "author, title", and I can also delete a title from the bibliography with the "notbib: true". Actually, the content of the notbib variable does not matter, it can be "true", "1", "yes", or even "false", "0", "no". We only check if the variable is present.

Of course, this is not valid CSL, but it seems to work nevertheless.

Thank you all so much. That's all most helpful!

Well, in a thread on discourse this fall (= fall 2018) is mentioned as a deadline for CSL 1.1 (https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-1-2-planning/1476). I do not know if there has been much progress since, but fall is here. (I am not saying that no work has been done, only that it is hard to see if you are not part of the CSL core team).

Hello, all -

I would love a "classic work" citation option. In philosophy, such abbreviations are quite common. For example, "Outlines of Pyrrhonism" (a.k.a. "Outlines of Skepticism/Scepticism", Πυῤῥώνειοι ὑποτυπώσεις) by Sextus Empiricus is typically abbreviated as "PH". Although sometimes it is referenced by full title in a footnote or endnote, and certainly in the Bibliography.

These abbreviations are especially common for the in-text parenthetical styles of citation, where the author may be citing many different passages from the same work. Thus one has a reduction of visual clutter via the abbreviation.

Of course, one would also have the flexibility to define an abbreviation for a work which does not already have one established by consensus.

To add to the challenge (but this feature would be more of a "luxury", I should think), sometimes the abbreviation is only noted in the first instance, and then immediately following citations only include the page or section numbers. For example, this from "A Pyrrhonian Plato?" by Mauro Bonazzi, in the anthology "New Essays on Ancient Pyrrhonism": "[Sextus Empiricus] discusses the positions of Heraclitus (PH I 210-212), Democritus (213-214), the Cyrenaics (215), Protagoras (216-219), the Academy (220-235)..." Such a hybrid approach might be impossible without manual editing of the result.

Well, here's hoping our beloved developers find a way to implement this.

Best regards.

I forgot where we left this, but generally our idea has always been that you could "swap in" different abbreviation lists from the reference manager. Those could be defined in the citation style, but they could also just be manually selected by the user.

@adamsmith, thanks for that.

@bwiernik, am I understanding correctly then that this additional "node in info" isn't something that's currently supported in CSL or Zotero? Thanks so much for the clarification!

Thanks, @bwiernik. I'll give that a try.

Sorry for the bother, but would anyone be able to tell what I'm missing in my above post from 15 June?

Thanks so very much for any thoughts you may have!

Thanks for that clarification, @adamsmith. I've

1. Added the sample abbreviations.json file that @bwiernik mentioned on 15 May to my Zotero data directory.
2. Started Zotero. And
3. Selected the MEDLINE abbreviation option in Word.

But the sample resource I've mentioned above gets the journal title abbreviated as "Bulletin Of American Schools Of Oriental Research" (per MEDLINE, I assume) rather than as "BASOR" per the sample abbreviations.json file.

I've also tried copying and pasting the journal title from abbreviations.json into the publication field in Zotero in case I had something misspelled or mis-cased.

Am I missing something else?

Thank you again for your help!