Generation Designations (Jr., III, etc.)

dstark
Per the SBL handbook §4.1.1.3 (which I believe follows Chicago on this point), generation designations in names should be handled as follows:
1. Tremper Longman III, “Form Criticism, Recent Developments in Genre Theory, and the Evangelical,” WTJ 47.1 (1985): 46–67.

3. Longman, “Form Criticism,” 58.

Longman, Tremper, III. “Form Criticism, Recent Developments in Genre Theory, and the Evangelical.” WTJ 47.1 (1985): 46–67.
The form for note 1. above can be achieved by including the generation (e.g., "III") in the surname field. But, then this currently repeats in subsequent notes after the surname (e.g., 3. above) and in the bibliography immediately after the surname rather than, as it should be, after the given name (thus: "Longman III, Tremper" rather than "Longman, Tremper, III").

Would it be possible to add a field for this generation information that could then be manipulated to produce the required style output? Or, since "Jr.", "III", and "IV" would pretty well cover the bases (there aren't many "the fifths" etc. running around writing things), would it be possible to amend the styles so that a surname ending in " Jr.", " III", or " IV" is automatically manipulated for subsequent notes (delete the generation) and bibliographies (extract the generation and put it after the given name) as the style manuals require?

Thank you so much!
  • adamsmith
    I haven't tested output, but the correct way to enter Jr. etc. is as
    Lastname: Smith
    Firstname: Adam, Jr.

    Try if that works.
  • bwiernik
    Enter these in the First (Given) name field following a comma, like this:
    Longman || Temper, III

    Zotero's citation processor will pick that up as a suffix and format it correctly for various styles.
  • dstark
    Well I'll be. Thought for sure I'd tried that, but I guess not ... or not recently enough. Works like a charm.

    Thanks so much to you both!
  • dereksifford
    edited April 15, 2019
    @adamsmith I don't think you're correct.

    I maintain the astrocite package in npm, which is utilized in Academic Blogger's Toolkit on WordPress (which I also maintain).

    I looked into this at great depth when initially putting together the name parser and I can't seem to find the paper that I used to make this decision, but if you must see it I'll attempt to dig it up...

    The paper recommend that names should be parsed in 1 of 4 forms:

    1. First von Last
    2. von Last, First
    3. von Last, Suffix, First
    4. Literal name

    I highly recommend that you use and recommend this format as it is the easiest way to parse and export for uncommon names.

    See the first link below for several dozen examples of this format before being processed.
    See the second link below for the names after being processed.

    https://github.com/dsifford/astrocite/blob/master/packages/core/src/__tests__/names-test.ts
    https://github.com/dsifford/astrocite/blob/master/packages/core/src/__tests__/__snapshots__/names-test.ts.snap

    Again, I would _strongly_ consider using this format in Zotero.

    (PS: I was sent here from: https://github.com/dsifford/astrocite/issues/4)
  • adamsmith
    edited April 15, 2019
    I mean -- I'm quite obviously correct in terms of how to enter names in Zotero to get the right citation output, which is all I was responding to.

    Given that this has been in place for many years so that switching costs are significant and likely with multiple moving parts, including export into other formats -- and that this is, afaik, the first complaint, I'm not sure there's going to be much appetite for change. But FWIW, I think the parsing code is by @fbennett who may know more about its history
  • fbennett
    edited April 15, 2019
    @dereksifford The patterns recognized by Zotero have worked fine over the past decade, and large volumes of user data are now stored that way. Apart from that practical issue, the patterns you suggest above don't seem to account for dropping and non-dropping name particles, which we need to do.
  • fbennett
    @dereksifford: To be clear, the above is not meant as a criticism of the pattern you have applied in ABT/astrocite; but the pattern described by adamsmith and bwiernik is the correct one for name suffixes chez Zotero. With respect to Zotero records, they are not mistaken.
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