Seeking comment on new CSL Release

The Citation Style Language, which provides the styles Zotero (and many other tools) use to format citations, is preparing a new release. We have just opened a two-weeks comment period:
https://citationstyles.org/2020/07/11/seeking-public-comment-on-CSL-1-0-2/

CSL and Zotero closely collaborate and many of the new additions were based on feedback from Zotero users and developers, but as you comment, please be aware that the two are separate projects with distinct data models, so inclusion in the CSL data model doesn't automatically mean that an item type or field will become available in Zotero, nor does the fact that something _isn't_ included in CSL mean it won't be in Zotero.
  • edited July 12, 2020
    I hope that someone can reassure me that I have misunderstood the deprecation of "sentence case conversion". There is a recommendation to store records with titles in sentence case, and some styles require sentence case. I routinely use Zotero to one-click quickly convert title-case and all-upper-case titles to sentence case and then hand edit them so that proper names and acronyms are cased properly. My Zotero records are in sentence case after I edit the publisher-supplied metadata so that the title fits my needs and the Zotero recommendations. I hope that this new policy does not mean that I will need to hand-edit titles that are supplied in title-case so that the titles are able to be stored in sentence case. This may be one of the CSL data model issues that will differ in the Zotero implantation of 1.0.2. I hope so.
  • edited July 12, 2020
    @DWL-SDCA: Yes, you've misunderstood it. As adamsmith says, this is about CSL, not Zotero. CSL has an option to convert titles to sentence case, but it's not used in any styles (e.g., APA), since there's no way to do it correctly. So it's just being removed. This has nothing to do with the UI option in Zotero to convert titles to sentence case.
  • Thank you. I should add that I believe that most of the other enhancements should be quite positive. FWIW I agree that a CSL function that blindly converts citations to sentence case (requiring editing in the document instead of in the PBM record) is not helpful. Dan Stillman, you are a wise, skilled, and patient gentleman.
  • edited July 27, 2020
    Sorry for a little bit late comment. I think new variable "original-language" will be helpful. Some journals need show in reference title - original-title - original-language and current CSL 1.0.1 knows only variable title and original-title. Specification of CSL 1.0.2 describe new variable "language" but I am not sure if it can be used in the same way as original-language.
  • Can you give an example of that being used?
  • edited July 27, 2020
    I sometimes cite Russian literature.

    The Zotero field "language" (as I understand it) is used to set the locale of the target bibliography. Maybe I have this backwards. My bibliographies are multi-lingual (entries can be a variety of languages or scripts). I have been using language to define what language the resource is written in, and I have the practice of putting the metadata in the language (and script) of publication. In the following citation I cite a publication in the Russian language published in Cyrillic script. It appears to be the practice of the editors of Cyrillic script volumes to transliterate citations and metadata into Cyrillic regardless of language of the original source (example 2) however if you go to example two, you notice that the publication is in English and Latin script, in a journal which is published in Russia. The transliteration of scripts is a stylesheet by stylesheet decision, as the original record's data is in the original language. For instance some stylesheets require the latinization of cyrillic sources as was done here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.3103/S0005105518010028 or https://link.springer.com/article/10.3103/S0147688214030071 (see bottom under Additional notes).

    However, if the above cases are tangential to the issue trying to be discussed, (as in I'm misunderstanding the point) the following link to the MLA indicates that there is an optional element in their style which is is displayed last and can contain previous publication history, If I were using MLA I would use this for indicating a previous publication in another language, see: https://style.mla.org/optional-elements-a-primer/ under the heading: Publication History


    An example where translation and original is used instead of transliteration.

    Идиатов, Дмитрий И. 2006. Глагольная деривация с терминативнЫм значением от глаголов изменения положения в пространстве в даи (семья Манде, Кот д’Ивуар) как случай лексикализации [Terminative derivation from motion verbs in Dan (Mande; Ivory Coast) as an instance of lexicalization]. In Н. Н Казанский (ed.), Mandeica Petropolitana (ACTA LINGUISTICA PETROPOLITANA. Труды Института лингвистических исследований РОССИЙСКАЯ АКАДЕМИЯ НАУК [ACTA LINGUISTICA PETROPOLITANA. Transactions of the Russian Academy of Science, Institute for Linguistic Studies] 2), vol. 2, 323–332. Санкт-Петербург, Википедия [St. Petersburg, Russia]: Наука [Science]. https://iling.spb.ru/pdf/alp/alp_II_2.pdf.

    an example of transliteration of citation metadata.

    Нельсон, Ханна Виктория. 2019. CUISINE AND POWER IN THE SUNJATA EPIC AND IN WEST AFRICA. Вестник Северо-Восточного федерального университета имени М.К. Аммосова. Vestnik of North-Eastern Federal University. Серия “Эпосоведение. Epic studies” 83–91. https://doi.org/10.25587/SVFU.2019.13.27693. https://epossvfu.ru/index.php/epos/article/view/217 (26 July, 2020).

    Two examples of resources where they were translated and re-published in a new language but the original was in a source language.

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.3103/S0005105518010028 https://link.springer.com/article/10.3103/S0147688214030071
  • @hughp3 Full multilingual versions of all fields like that is outside the scope of CSL 1.0.2 and likely CSL 1.1. I suggest you check out Jurism, a version of Zotero with much expanded multilingual field support designed to produce those types of citations: https://juris-m.github.io
  • But the original-language variable makes sense in the context of the other original- variables, no? I think it makes perfect sense to be able to have something like:
    "Translated from _original-language_ by _translator_".

    Or even simpler, the Vancouver option taken directly from Citing Medicine:
    Vazquez de la Iglesia F, Fernandez Gonzalez S. [Method for the study of pulmonary function in laryngectomized patients]. Acta Otorrinolaringol Esp. 2006 Jun-Jul;57(6):275-8. Spanish.

    The title is given in English (and so language should be en for capitalization) but the original language is Spanish.
  • edited July 27, 2020
    Thanks that’s helpful.

    The first example makes sense. Supporting this type of citation would require some more sophisticated handling—if language data are entered in ISO codes, then the processor would need to be able to insert the actual language words. So I think leaving original-language to CSL 1.1 will be necessary. CSL 1.1 is also planned to support every field in an “original-” version.

    The second I would think “Method for…” should be entered as the translated-title and Spanish/es as the item’s language.
  • edited July 29, 2020
    Just a quick note: Jurism uses vectors for this in the language field: `de>en` denoting a translation from German into English. Maybe an alternative to a distinct field/variable. (Edit: actually no, as this is just a GUI convention: internally this is split up into two distinct variables...)
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