Chicago vs Harvard (Formatting of book/article titles)

Dear colleagues and peers

I often write in Chicago. But I am learning Zotero for my thesis, which has to be done in Harvard style. As we all know, the formatting for both styles, in relation to book and article titles, are different. Which parts of the title to put in caps are different for both styles. If I key in my entry into Zotero right now using Harvard, in future when I switch back to Chicago, do I have to manually change the formatting of the titles (as per each entry), or will Zotero automatically change the formatting of the book/article titles (as per the style required, i.e. Chicago, Harvard, APA etc)?

Many thanks
  • edited May 28, 2020
    Harvard just means author-date.
    Chicago actually has an author-date style, or Harvard if one needs to use this confusing word.

    "Harvard" per se DOESN'T really specify any details about the formatting. Hence we have several hundred "Harvard" styles on the repository.

    Saying that, I am sure you could find a style that has title casing or even just use the Chicago one.

    https://www.zotero.org/styles?q=id:chicago-author-date
  • Yes, what I mean is that right now, I key my entries as per Chicago in terms of title casing. When I generate my bibliography in Harvard, would it change the casing, as required?

    Thanks in advance, mate
  • Depends on the citation style.
    If that has "sentence casing" set, then it'll transform it for you. (not too common, but very easy to add). As I tried to explain above, there is no single "Harvard style", so it'll all depend.

    You are aware that you can right click on a title and choose title/sentence casing?
  • Thanks again. I am not aware of the right click!

    I am on Westminster Harvard. But I actually prefer Chicago for most work.

    Right now, I am using headline casing for my entries into Zotero. When I generate my bibliography for Harvard style (U of Westminster), I don't have to change the titles manually before doing so. Right?
  • If this is just about title casing see: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/sentence_casing

    Zotero will auto-convert to title case e.g. for Chicago style but will not convert to sentence case, so you should enter all your titles in sentence case.
  • many thanks adamsmith!
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