Computer programs stored as documents in Zotero show no date
One of the document types in Zotero is "computer program". I have entered a computer program as an entry in Zotero. However, when I produce the bibliographic entry, using APA style, it does not show a date (n.d. => no date). I have used the "version" field to store a 4-digit date (2004), but even that does not appear as the date. For example,
Smith, R. (n.d.). INTEGRATE.FOR. U.S. Department of Transportation. Retrieved February 20, 2009, .
Smith, R. (n.d.). INTEGRATE.FOR. U.S. Department of Transportation. Retrieved February 20, 2009, .
I'm not sure if CSL (the underlying style language Zotero uses) has a variable that would be appropriate to map the version to. Do style guides provide any guidance for citing computer programs?
http://xbiblio.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/xbiblio/csl/schema/trunk/csl.rnc?view=markup
525 ## version description
526 "version"
https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/branches/1.0/system.sql
? I'm guessing we would need something like:
746 INSERT INTO itemTypeFields VALUES (32, 14, NULL, 18);
? Apologies for not actually understanding how the innards of zotero works. But in short, I'm also looking for a solution to this as currently I am storing references to computer programs (APA format) as a Conference Paper item type, setting my titles to things like:
"SPSS (Version 15.0) [Computer Software]"
just so the date appears correctly. This is almost certainly going to come back to haunt me.
APA:
http://www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/citation/apa/software/
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/
MLA:
http://www.library.american.edu/subject/MLA.pdf (at the end, p4)
Chicago:
They want you to buy their book;
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/YouCouldLookItUp/YouCouldLookItUp03.html
But the crib sheet here gives you an idea:
http://www.docstyles.com/cmscrib.htm
Some people like to reference the hard-copy or electronic version of the software's manual, which would be cited like any other Web resource, though the Style Guides don't specify this as far as I can see.
Some technical software written by academics also says how they would like to be cited (sometimes a journal article that first introduced the software, e.g. http://welcome.warnercnr.colostate.edu/~gwhite/mark/mark.htm#Documentation)
I think it's better for the programmers careers if you cite the article rather than the software itself!
The "Version" field was already mapped to CSL's "version" variable.