Help with citations

Hello, I am using the 'MHRA (note with bibliography)' citation style in Zotero for Manuscripts. It does not accord with the requirements of the MHRA handbook for Manuscripts.

Zotero citations give the order Title of Document, Name of Archive, Location of Archive, Item Number

The MHRA style guide format requires the order: Location of Archive, Name of Archive, Item Number, Title of Document

Does anyone know, by any chance, how I fix this in Zotero?

Thanks
  • Hi folks...

    Did you/anyone manage to find a way to fix this? I'm having the same issue with MHRA (notes and bibliography) and manuscript / archive materials. None of the earlier posts seem to have resolved the issue. In terms of Zotero fields, to ahdere to MHRA requirements, I think I need Manuscript items to appear as follows:

    Archive, Loc. in Archive, 'Title', Date
    For example: National Archives, WORKS/16/391, 'Children's Playgrounds', 24 August 1909
    At the moment Zotero does this: 'Title', Date, Archive, Loc. in Archive.

    Thanks for your help!



  • edited July 16, 2021
    Have you added some of this information into the extra field?
    E.g. archive-place: Paris

    The MHRA style picks up these 3 variables: archive-place, archive and archive_location.
  • Hello,

    Thanks for your help - I did add archive-place to the extra field. It's the order that the information appears in the footnote that I'm unsure how to change - I need it to appear in the following order: Archive, archive-place, Loc. in Archive, title, date.

    I previously managed to modify the MHRA template to include the short title in every subsequent citations (this is required by my School but not by MHRA) based on information on the discussion forum - I don't mind trying to change the order that fields are presented in a footnote by modifying the style - but would need some help in knowing what to change! I can get myself into the style editor, but ideally would cut and paste something from there!

    Thanks again...
  • Yes, it's programmed in the style as such and will print it out in that order. So you'd move those around to achieve what you want. Is this something the style does wrong though (and not in line with the guidelines) or something you personally want?


    <macro name="archive-note">
    <group delimiter=", ">
    <text variable="archive-place"/>
    <text variable="archive"/>
    <text variable="archive_location"/>
    </group>
    </macro>
  • In terms of the style, I think this is something that can work in Zotero although it's a bit clumsy. I've just checked the style guide (http://www.mhra.org.uk/pdf/MHRA-Style-Guide-3rd-Edn.pdf) and in section 11.2.9 on page 70 it says that manuscripts should appear as follows:

    Archive location, archive name, manuscript collection, folio.
    E.g. London, British Library, Jon's papers 123, fol.4

    I think the easiest way to make this work in Zotero is to put:
    - archive location and name in the Archive field (e.g. London, British Library)
    - manuscript collection and folio in the Loc. in Archive field (e.g. Jon's papers 123, fol.4)

    That then appears correctly as London, British Library, Jon's papers 123, fol.4.

    However, as soon as the Zotero title or date field has information in it, these appear first in the footnote when in fact they should probably appear last (it's not specified in the MHRA guidance but my institution (University of Kent, UK) and others say to put this at the end).

    So I guess I just need to use the style editor to change the order in which Zotero's manuscript fields are presented in a footnote so that it appears as:

    Archive, Loc. in Archive, 'title' (note invert commas), date.

    Are you able to let me know how I would change the code to get it in that order?

    Thank you so much for your help with this!

    P.S. if we get this sorted, it might be useful to update this page or create one for MHRA specifically? https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/archival_or_other_unpublished_sources

  • OK.
    So, I pointed out the macro that deals with this information. Now you can search in the code where this macro is used. And you'll find that it's used in the "access-note" macro.

    The footnotes are rendered by "citation" part at the end of the style and you can see that it calls this very macro at the end of this. So you can move that macro around and place it where you need it.
  • That's really helpful, thanks. I've almost got what I need...

    Is there a way to differentiate between 'book' and 'manuscript' item types and the inclusion of 'archive-note' information in footnotes and bibliography? I need 'archive-note' information to appear with 'manuscript' and 'letter' - but not with 'book' and 'journal' for instance? One obvioius but seemingly clumsy solution is to delete the archive info from the relevant fields for each book, but it's a shame as it's a useful place to store that information...
  • You'd build a conditional with if type="manuscript letter" match="any" and put the archive macro into that if statement.

    (I'm being relatively vague as I know you can figure it out. :) )
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