bug ore feature? Chicago Manual of Styles17th Edition (author-date)

pzerweck
edited April 12, 2021
Hey there.
I'm using zotero and Chikago Manual of Styles 17th edition (author-date)
https://www.zotero.org/styles/chicago-author-date
in language setting= german

I'm accounting, that it references (Author1, Author2, und Author3 year). The comma in front of the "und" seams to me (and my Lectors) like a bug, not a feature. In english, it may be correct, but in german a comma in front of an "und" looks like an error.

Could anybody tell me, wether it is correct to the official version of the Chicago Manual of Styles? Or wether the Plug-in could ahve a bug in the german settings version?
I need to communicate a solution to my thesis advisor (who is not familiar with citation styles) in black and white, and I don't want to manually fart around in my 500something zotero references in the Word document.

I know, that the Manual of Styles is formulatet for english publications, not for germen language, but the german setting ist manly very propper and differs from the english settings in details.

Thanx
Philip
  • adamsmith
    CSL styles can't localize the commas for lists, so I guess I'd call this a limitation. There are a fair number of German language styles you could use instead.
  • pzerweck
    Thanks very much for the fast aswer ... but the German styles are far behind when it comes to the use of online referencing ... unfortunately, the discipline I work in has not yet produced a "common ground" on the topic of referencing.

    So I get you right, that the german variant is not part of the "official" Chikago manual of Styles and therefor one can't say, wether the reference (Author1, Author2, und Author3 year) as the german setting produces is right or wrong?

    Than I tell the thesis advisor, that the comma is right, because in the original english version it is right, and so the german transfer (not translation) also has to be that way.
  • damnation
    Btw, you can just make your own custom style.
    To remove that comma you'd set delimiter-precedes-last from "always" to "contextual" in contributors macro etc.
    Despite it being the Chicago style, that's a fairly easy change.

    General instructions here: https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step
  • adamsmith
    I guess you could argue that. I don't think there's a "right" for a style with no formal manual other than the English version. FWIW, we do have a German specific version of the 16th edition CMoS author-date style without that comma that might work well:
    https://www.zotero.org/styles?q=id:chicago-author-date-de
    Other than the DOI format, I think the changes between 16 and 17 were small
  • adamsmith
    @damnation
    To remove that comma you'd set delimiter-precedes-last from "always" to "contextual" in contributors macro etc.
    the serial comma gets added in "contextual" (which omits it with two authors). You want "never" for this.
  • damnation
    Ah yeah. Thanks. :)
  • pzerweck
    Thanx for tonight. I'll try my very best to get rid of the "comma" the next days by changing the stile. I need DOI and some other differences with internet sources I think I have seen. That's why I will stick to 17th, but it's very usefull to have the 16th in German without comma, to compare the macro.

    Thanks so far. And I will report the outcome.

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