Date appears twice or not at all in reference to child pdf

Stelljes
I'm adding an agency plan to my database...using Chicago 17. The plan is a pdf and doesn't show an author field unless I add a parent website. When I choose the pdf, I get no author

“5-Year Plan.” n.d. Accessed March 23, 2021. https://new.azwater.gov/sites/default/files/ADWR5YearPlan2016.pdf.

When I choose the parent website (with no date in the date field) for the reference list, it gives me an access date.

Arizona Department of Water Resources. n.d. “5-Year Plan.” ADWR Reports. Accessed March 23, 2021. https://new.azwater.gov/adwr-reports.

If I put the date of the pdf publication in (which is what I actually want), that date shows up twice.

Arizona Department of Water Resources. 2016. “5-Year Plan.” ADWR Reports. 2016. https://new.azwater.gov/adwr-reports.

The last ref above is the one I want, but not with 2016 twice...

Both the website and the pdf were added from Zotero connector in Chrome then I attached the pdf as a child to the website.

What am I doing wrong? Thanks!
Kathryn
  • bwiernik
    edited March 23, 2021
    You need to add a proper Zotero parent item to the attachment. Don’t directly cite attachment files, which don’t have proper metadata.
    https://www.zotero.org/support/adding_items_to_zotero
  • adamsmith
    No, I think the structure here is clear -- the main question is "why does the year appear twice" and that's because of a mix of Chicago style and Zotero/CSL limitations:

    1. Chicago style, since the 17th edition, suggests to repeat the year, when a full date is given in the end of a citation.
    2. CSL can't tell whether an item has month and day in the date field, so we always print the date for item types (like webpage) that use the full date. That means if you just include the year, you get a duplicate year.

    Generally the recommendation would be to try your best to get a full date four sources. You could in this case look at the PDF metadata which suggests January 13, 2017.
  • AndrewStyan
    @adamsmith I'm having a similar problem with type = "Artwork". The year of the artwork is duplicated in Chicago 17 and your suggestion is inappropriate as artworks only ever have a year, and no month or day. Any other suggestions?
    Thanks.
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