Enter bimonthly or quarterly publications

I need to cite some articles published in bimonthly or quarterly publications, but I can't get zotero to understand "jan-feb 1984" or "oct-dec 1999" as MM[to]MM YYYY date style.

Does anyone know how to make it?

I found this topic, but there's still no answer
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/10010/format-the-dates-depending-on-the-frequency-of-publication/

thank you!
  • Yes, date should just be the publication date other information about the journal issue/volume should not be saved in that field. Try date = "1984", issue = "oct-dec".
  • although "should" in this case just means that that's the only way to get this right with Zotero at this point. I'm a bit torn whether more generally that info should actually be in the issue or the date field, I can see arguments for both.
    And, obviously, Zotero's date field should allow date ranges either way (and everyone agrees that it should). Will still take some time, though.
  • Just a quick comment -- I have this issue, too. I'm citing AI Magazine, which is a quarterly. The issue is "Summer", but it is also issue number 2, so I don't have the "issue" field to shove the quarter into.
  • You can enter “Summer 2004” or similar in the Date field. Zotero recognizes seasons.
  • @bwiernik You are right that Zotero accepts this. What happened to me is that Better BibTeX did not handle this. What went wrong was actually an *export* error, not a Zotero error.

    [Sorry to have taken so long to get back about this -- I just got the time to test this more carefully.]
  • Oh in that case, could you describe exactly your situation for @emilianoeheyns ?
  • Yeah I can't currently replicate an export error when I enter "Summer 2004" in the date field.
  • I'm unable to make it display season for journal articles with CMOS author-date style. I've tried putting "Winter 2017" in the date field for this particular citation.

    With note-style there doesn't seem to be a problem. I get this:
    Author. “Title.” Journal 31, no. 1 (Winter 2017): 117–40.

    But with Author-Date I just get this:
    Author. 2017. “Title.” Journal 31 (1):117–40.

    According to CMOS 17th "15.9: Author-date references—examples and variations", all information should be included, and it should there display like this:
    Author. 2017. “Title.” Journal 31, no. 1 (Winter): 117–40.

    Is there a way to get around this?
  • Not currently. Since styles can't test for the presence of date parts (i.e. we can't actually change the citation based on a season or month being present) we're following the examples in 15.47, for items without season/month info, in all cases.
  • Not sure I fully understand what you mean. It appears it does test for presence of date parts in some cases, as with Notes-style per the example above?

    For Author-Date-style it does show date or season if either volume or issue is missing (apart from the case of volume and season present, then it only displays the volume no. I've tested for all the examples and this is what I get:


    Author-Date (volume no. + season present, issue no. not present) – does not display season:

    [Author]. 2016. "[Title]." [Journal name] 18: 191–218.


    Author-Date (volume no. + month present, issue no. not present) – does display month:

    [Author]. 2016. "[Title]." [Journal name] 18 (December): 191–218.


    Author-Date (issue and season present, volume no. not present) – does display season:

    [Author]. 2016. "[Title]." [Journal name], no. 1 (Winter): 191–218.


    Author-Date (issue and month present, volume no. not present) – does display month:

    [Author]. 2016. "[Title]." [Journal name], no. 1 (December): 191–218.


    Author-Date (volume, issue and season present) – does not display season:

    [Author]. 2016. "[Title]." [Journal name] 18 (1): 191–218.


    Author-Date (volume, issue and month present) – does not display month:

    [Author]. 2016. "[Title]." [Journal name] 18 (1): 191–218.
  • No. For Notes styles we just give the date as month/season and year. If there's no month/season, it will just display the year and that's fine for the note style.

    But that doesn't work for author-date styles because absent month/season, CMoS calls for a completely different citation format (that's 15.47).

    Also, just printing the year by itself in cases where no month/season are available (the way we do for notes) would look/be completely wrong -- you'd just have the year twice -- and that'd be the only option here.

    If you look at the examples you provide for different combinations of date/issue/volume, I think these are all pretty good Chicago style citations. I don't think we can do better currently.
  • edited May 16, 2021
    Just reporting that I also get Better BibTeX export errors for any date with a season in it, whether it precedes or follows the year. The year itself is not output into the (BBT generated) .bib file, but the standard BibTeX export will output the year without the season.

    For example, the record which yields the Chicago full-note style citation:

    Ansoff, H. Igor. ‘Managing Strategic Surprise by Response to Weak Signals’. California Management Review 18, no. 2 (Winter 1975): 21–33.

    yields the following BBT output (May 15 2021 update):


    @article{ansoff75mssrws,
    title = {Managing strategic surprise by response to weak signals},
    author = {Ansoff, H. Igor},
    volume = {18},
    pages = {21--33},
    issn = {0008-1256},
    journal = {California Management Review},
    number = {2}
    }
    % == BibTeX quality report for ansoff75mssrws:
    % Missing required field 'year'
    % ? Unused autoJournalAbbreviation: Calif. Manage. Rev.
    % ? Unused journalAbbreviation: Calif. Manage. Rev.


    This occurs whether the date field is "Winter 1975" or "1975 Winter", and the Chicago output will always do "(Winter 1975)" no matter the order of season and year.

    If one uses Better BibLaTeX output, this is rendered as:


    @article{ansoff75mssrws,
    title = {Managing strategic surprise by response to weak signals},
    author = {Ansoff, H. Igor},
    date = {1975-24},
    journaltitle = {California Management Review},
    shortjournal = {Calif. Manage. Rev.},
    volume = {18},
    pages = {21--33},
    issn = {0008-1256},
    number = {2}
    }
    .

    Note the date, which I think is citeproc's way of rendering 1975 Winter. This also occurs when entered either as "season year" or "year season".

    I'm assuming that treating the season as a more complex form of "month" will not work -- by which I mean: "month = {Winter}" is output, as opposed to the standard three-letter abbreviations without double quotes in standard BibTeX. (I know it's bad BibTeX style, but I'm trying to kludge it to work...).

    I guess some insight into the plan for dealing with "Season Year" date entries in the next version would be handy, before I go ahead and add "Issued: Year Season" into the Extra field of all of these records...
  • edited May 16, 2021
    Please report this at https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/issues and we'll see if we can get a bibtex solution for you. At the very least it should have picked up the year.
  • edited May 16, 2021
    1975-24 is not citeproc though, it is ISO 8601, and for biblatex, date = {1975-24} is correct (see https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/396619) and this is the only way you get properly translated seasons.
  • Just reporting that I also get Better BibTeX export errors for any date with a season in it
    in what sense are you getting errors? Undesirable output, error message popups of some kind, something else?
  • 5.4.12 should be out in 10 minutes and exports season dates for bibtex.
  • That is, 10 minutes after this is fixed.
  • 5.4.13 is out.
  • edited May 16, 2021
    in what sense are you getting errors? Undesirable output, error message popups of some kind, something else?
    The .bib file contains error messages such as that shown above ("missing required field year"). It seems that the season entry confused the parser and dropped the year on output, which is undesirable output (i.e., lost data). There were no message pop-ups during the export. It's only when trying to use the .bib file for citations (eg in Zettlr) that there is an error message (due to no year).
    1975-24 is not citeproc though, it is ISO 8601, and for biblatex, date = {1975-24} is correct
    Yes, indeed. Since I tend to use standard .bst styles I haven't really gone near the BibLaTeX formats.
    5.4.13 is out.
    A quick look through the (standard Better BibTeX output) .bib file shows the year now being picked up and the season rendered as "month = {winter}", with upper-case "W" in Zotero converted to lower case "w" in the .bib file. Other records with seasons similarly, with the lower-case first letter.

    So, this now works as per the advice given in the stackexchange post shown above (I knew it was bad BibTeX style to use "month = {Season}" since it won't translate to other languages), but I was intrigued to see the stackexchangers suggesting the same crude kludge! I guess that's what happens after 30 years of LaTeX/BibTeX ;-)

    Given that this now seems fixed, is there still a need to open an issue on Git?

    Many thanks!
  • edited May 17, 2021

    The .bib file contains error messages such as that shown above ("missing required field year"). It seems that the season entry confused the parser and dropped the year on output, which is undesirable output (i.e., lost data).

    Ah, those; that is BBT's quality report. They're not errors perse, and they're not error messages reporting on BBT itself; I was thrown off thinking BBT was misbehaving.

    A quick look through the (standard Better BibTeX output) .bib file shows the year now being picked up and the season rendered as "month = {winter}", with upper-case "W" in Zotero converted to lower case "w" in the .bib file. Other records with seasons similarly, with the lower-case first letter.

    That's just because of this. The choice is somewhat arbitrary, since I don't know where the term will show up in the bibliography (where a leading capital would be appropriate or not). It's not really a direct translation of the term; BBT has a fairly extensive date parser, and the resulting structure gets written back out in a form most appropriate for the target format. Date parsing is exactly the same for better bibtex and biblatex, the exporter just didn't do anything with the season-date case for bibtex; this is now fixed.

    So, this now works as per the advice given in the stackexchange post shown above (I knew it was bad BibTeX style to use "month = {Season}" since it won't translate to other languages), but I was intrigued to see the stackexchangers suggesting the same crude kludge! I guess that's what happens after 30 years of LaTeX/BibTeX ;-)

    I just went by what I found there, so it's not that much of a coincedence :)

    Given that this now seems fixed, is there still a need to open an issue on Git?

    No, if this satisfies you, this is fine. I have a test case to prevent regressions, and I have confirmation, so I'm all good.

  • That's just because of this. The choice is somewhat arbitrary, since I don't know where the term will show up in the bibliography (where a leading capital would be appropriate or not).
    Ah, I see. But I can also see that the UK and Australia, for example, will also need an "autumn" entry in the case 'season' selector, because we speak correct English ;-)

    The tweaking of these things never ends! Back before LaTeX2e was released (i.e., way back in the Palaeolithic of the Internet), I had to write my own modified-LaTeX .fmt to properly pull in AmS-TeX extensions and a swag of other enhancements (such as Wasyfont and "blackboard bold") to get the whole lot to play nice together. It spent a few years on the University mainframe available for anyone else whose needs were silly enough to need it, but could at last be retired once LaTeX2e was launched. That was a huge relief, because people who actually knew what they were doing stepped in ;-)
  • Ah, I see. But I can also see that the UK and Australia, for example, will also need an "autumn" entry in the case 'season' selector, because we speak correct English ;-)
    this is something I'd like to discuss on github. I have my support infra there, and access to people who know the arcana of bibtex (which is not necessarily me).
  • Done. For others who might want to follow this, see: https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/issues/1810
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