Problems with Society for American Archaeology Style

roadworn1
Hi all,

I've noticed a couple of problems with the SAA style and was hoping for some input on how to fix. First, the style guide for multiple authors states that only the primary or lead author should be included in intext citations (i.e. Johnson et al. 2014). This works fine in the style guide, but when it is multiple et al.s by same author in the same year, the second author pops up (i.e. Johnson, Roberts, et al. 2013; Johnson, Clark et al. 2013) It should just be (Johnson et al. 2013a; Johnson et al. 2013b).

Second when multiple authors are in text the style currently lists like this (Clark 1997; Clark 1998; Clark 1999), but should drop consecutive repetitions and cite like this (Clark 1997; 1998; 1999).

Third, the bibliography for entries by the same author repeats the authors name:
Scott, James C.
1985 Weapons of the weak : everyday forms of peasant resistance. Yale University Press, New Haven.

Scott, James C.
1989 Everyday Forms of Resistance. The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 4.

Scott, James C.
1990 Domination and the arts of resistance : hidden transcripts. Yale University Press, New Haven.


But should nest under only one entry for the author like this:
Scott, James C.
1985 Weapons of the weak : everyday forms of peasant resistance. Yale University Press, New Haven.

1989 Everyday Forms of Resistance. The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 4.

1990 Domination and the arts of resistance : hidden transcripts. Yale University Press, New Haven.

I tried to fix this on my own but was unable to. Any help, suggestions, or guidance would be greatly appreciated.
  • adamsmith
    I fixed issues 2 and 3. You're mistaken about 1) see the note at the bottom of page 16 of the styleguide.

    The updated version will appear on the repository within 30mins (check the timestamp). Update your copy of the style by clicking "Update Now" in the General tab of the Zotero preferences.

    Styles also update automatically within 24hs for Zotero 4.0+
    In an existing document, you may have to switch to a different style and back for the changes to take effect once the style is updated.
    Any further problems please let us know & thanks for reporting
  • roadworn1
    Thanks, Adam! You're definitely right about that first issue.

    One last issue that I've noticed (and I'm pretty sure this used to work, but it doesn't any more) is that when new in text references are added, they don't automatically sort alphabetically. I realize that with Zotero when you add references to an existing in text field you'll have to manually order them, but I thought it used to automatically sort new entries. Is this possible to fix?

    Thanks again.
  • roadworn1
    Hi,

    Just want to follow up to see if anyone has suggestions for how to sort new in-text citations alphabetically. Currently the style isn't doing that.

    Thanks.
  • consterthefirst
    Please clarify: For bibliography, the SAA style guide, (and therefor all my profs) require the second and third lines of wrap-around text to line up with the text above it--not the date. I don't see that in the ap sample, in the samples above, nor in ap practice." Is this feature negotiable? If not, can the bibliography maker be fixed to perform that feature?
  • adamsmith
    actually, if you look at the style guide, the following lines start at about halfway under the date. They're not aligned with either the date nor the text after the date.
    Neither this nor exact alignment with the text after the date are possible in Zotero/CSL. There are just too many levels of indenting involved. It's a mystery to me why SAA and AAA thinks this is a good idea. It's a giant pain to do manually, too.
  • consterthefirst
    Hear Hear on the mystery! Giant pain for a seemingly needless detail. I've yet to hear an adequate explanation for why why why! Thanks for looking into it. Whatever the manual pain, Zotero at least gets me closer and saves mounds of time on the other features. Thank you.
  • Pettigrew
    I have run into another small problem with the SAA style. It is currently putting webpages in the biblio this way:

    Ashby, Ed
    2005a Momentum, Kinetic Energy, and Arrow Penetration (And What They Mean for the Bowhunter)Unpublished Electronic Document. http://tuffhead.com/education/ashby.html, accessed May 5, 2018.

    As you can see the problem comes after the title. According to the most recent SAA style guide (p.39), the citation should read

    Ashby, Ed
    2005a Momentum, Kinetic Energy, and Arrow Penetration (And What They Mean for the Bowhunter). Electronic Document, http://tuffhead.com/education/ashby.html, accessed May 5, 2018.

    Notice there should be a comma not a period after Electronic Document. I have no idea how to fix this problem. Thanks!
  • damnation
    Hi,

    thank you for reporting the issue. I have now submitted a fix and it renders the citation like such:

    Anon
    2018 Momentum, Kinetic Energy, and Arrow Penetration (And What They Mean for the Bowhunter). Tuffhead.com. May 5, 2018. Electronic Document, http://tuffhead.com/education/ashby.html, accessed April 7, 2020.

    (I also added the accessed date to DOIs, as per the guidelines)

    Right click on the links, save as and download the .csl file to install: https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/raw/6bdc9098a5b79ffcf3aa0ff79b11e034a8df8f55/society-for-american-archaeology.csl
  • Pettigrew
    Thanks! That worked!
Sign In or Register to comment.