Chicago Style (Note and Bibliography) - Unsigned Newspaper Article

I am working with numerous newspaper articles from the 19th century, nearly all of which are unsigned. I need to include them in a bibliography. I am using CMOS 17 (notes and bibliography) style.

CMOS 14.199 states that the bibliography for an unsigned newspaper article should place the name of the *newspaper* in place of the author. The current "Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition (full note)" csl places the *article title* in place of the author. Is it possible to modify the csl so that it complies with CMOS 17?

For example, CMOS 14.199 indicates that a bibliography entry for an unsigned newspaper article should be:

New York Times. “In Texas, Ad Heats Up Race for Governor.” July 30, 2002.

The current csl provides instead:

“In Texas, Ad Heats Up Race for Governor.” New York Times. July 30, 2002.

[the name of the newspaper is italicized in all of the above examples]

Thank you for any suggestions. I may very well be missing something obvious, as my familiarity with coding is limited.
  • We just left newspapers out of a line of code there for some reason. We're already doing this for webpages -- will fix pretty soon & post here.
  • I just pushed a fix -- should be live for all standard Chicago styles (16th and 17th edition) in the next 24hs. Check the timestamp on zotero.org/styles
  • Unfortunately this doesn't appear to be fixed in the 1/16/2022 update. In the bibliography, the entries are still publication then article title, rather than the reverse. However, the entries are sorted using the article title for alphabetical sorting, even though it isn't first in the entry. Here's an excerpt from my bibliography:

    Friedel, Robert. “American Bottles: The Road to No Return.” Environmental History 19, no. 3 (July 1, 2014): 505–27. https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emu061.

    Daily Hampshire Gazette. “Garbage-Trash Collection for City Under Study.” September 1, 1970.

    Geertz, Clifford. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture.” In The Interpretation of Cultures, 3–30. New York: Basic Books, 1973.

    The first and third entries are correct (an article and a book section). The second entry is the issue, an unsigned newspaper article. The bibliography is correctly alphabetizing this entry based on the title of the article (Friedel, Garbage, Geertz). However, the article title should appear first, followed by the publication. At a quick glance, it looks like quite a mess when working with many of these older newspaper articles. because the bibliography as a whole doesn't appear to be sorted alphabetically based on the first few letters of each entry. In reality, the sorting is fine, it's just that the title and publication haven't been reversed.

    Thanks for your help!
  • Daily Hampshire Gazette. “Garbage-Trash Collection for City Under Study.” September 1, 1970.

    is correct -- it's just not correctly sorted. I'll take a look.
  • Ah, yes, you are right. The issue is sorting, not the publication/title order.

    For reference, in case anyone else is confused like me, here's the current guidelines:

    14.199: Unsigned newspaper articles

    Unsigned newspaper articles or features are best dealt with in text or notes. But if a bibliography entry should be needed, the title of the newspaper stands in place of the author.

    1. “In Texas, Ad Heats Up Race for Governor,” New York Times, July 30, 2002.

    New York Times. “In Texas, Ad Heats Up Race for Governor.” July 30, 2002.

    Thanks for your help!

  • I have the same problem. All help welcome
  • One other remark on the 1/16 update: apart from the bibliographic alphabetization not loading properly, I'm also seeing that the title of the newspaper is being set in Roman rather than italics when it stands in place of the author (as in an unsigned newspaper article).
  • Hello, I am running Zotero 6.01.18. Just started using it two weeks ago all good except for the very problem outlined above.

    This problem still exists for Chicago 17th, all the "note" variants updated 1/16/2022. Still two issues: The paper name is not italicized and the articles are incorrectly alphabetized, they are alphabetized by the article title. This is only for the bibliography output -- the note output appears correctly.

    The problem appears to have been fixed in the "author-date" version updated 12/11/2022 . . . . both the italics and alphabetization is correct.

    I have cut and pasted sample bibliography output below.

    Any idea when the "notes" versions will be updated to correct these problems? Thanks in advance.

    ------------------------------------------

    Daily Standard Union. “Amateur Baseball.” April 28, 1915.
    Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “Bowlers Preparing for a Busy Season on Local Alleys,” August 19, 1901.
    Brooklyn Citizen. “Brooklyn Doing Well in Big Bowling League,” May 8, 1904.
    Brooklyn Citizen. “National Bowling League: New York Schedule,” April 5, 1904.
    Chicago Tribune. “Pinboys Make a Strike: Turn Bowling Term to New Use and Worry A. C. Anson,” December 21, 1902.
    Daily Standard Union. “St. Patrick’s R.C. Church Ranks Among Strongest Parishes in the Diocese.” June 20, 1909.

  • If I should add a new thread, please let me know, but this question seems to fit the topic on the current thread:

    The issue is subsequent citations for unsigned newspaper articles in Chicago Style (17th ed - short title subsequent)

    The current output is correct for the first cite of a source, e.g.:

    “A Son’s Almoner,” Louisville Courier-Journal, November 14, 1893. [the newspaper displays in italics, correctly}

    The current output is not correct for a subsequent cite. It is simply the title of the article in quotes. It should be in the form: newspaper name, title in quotes, e.g.

    Louisville Courier Journal, "A Son's Almoner." [all Roman]

    Thanks for any help you can offer
  • @kevinorear -- what do you base this on? I'm not seeing any example in the Manual and it seems odd to suddenly list the newspaper title first in the citation when that hasn't be done before.

    For all others -- the sort order is fixed in the built-in full note style. I'll also fix the italics and then apply it to all CMoS17 styles as it applies.
  • I don't see any example in the Manual either, but I suspect that is because it's a relatively uncommon situation. I am basing the request on items that the Manual addresses in other contexts.

    CMoS17 14.30 says that "The most common short form consists of the last name of the author and the main title of the work cited." CMoS17 14.32 says that "the last name of the author ... is needed in the short form."

    CMoS17 does not address the issue of short-form citations for unsigned newspaper articles, but 14.199 says that "if a bibliography entry should be needed, the title of the newspaper stands in place of the author."

    All of this suggests to me that the name of the newspaper should serve as the first element in a short-form citation to unsigned newspaper articles.

    Otherwise, the short-form citation would simply be the title of the article, which can be quite confusing when multiple newspapers use the same title for an article.

    Here's an example from a current project of mine. These two articles refer to different events.

    Bibliography entries:
    Louisville Courier-Journal. “Acquitted.” January 26, 1896.
    Prescott (AR) Daily News. “Acquitted.” July 19, 1907.

    First footnote entries:
    “Acquitted,” Louisville Courier-Journal, January 26, 1896.
    “Acquitted,” Prescott (AR) Daily News, July 19, 1907.

    Subsequent notes in the current Zotero CMoS style:
    "Acquitted" - the same for each source, without any way to tell which source is being cited

    Subsequent notes in the requested CMoS style:
    Louisville Courier-Journal, “Acquitted.”
    Prescott (AR) Daily News, “Acquitted.”

    Thanks for any help or insight
  • The style should add the date on subsequent citation, though, and does for me (note that's distinct from citations in the ibid position).

    I don't think 14.30 usefully applies here, since all examples have an actual author (or editor or translator), which unsigned newspaper articles don't have.

    I'll readily admit that I find the CMoS rules around this a bit mystifying -- why not put the newspaper title in the author position in all cases, and why that inconsistency between note and bibliography? -- but since they don't put the newspaper title in the author position in full note, I don't think reversing the order for the short note makes sense.

    If I had to guess, CMoS would tell you that for a rare case like yours, where you have multiple newspaper articles with the same title, adding the newspaper title to short forms makes sense, but this flexibility, while probably a good idea, is obviously beyond what we can automate.
  • Understood - thanks for looking into it and responding so quickly
  • edited March 22, 2023
    For anyone who's interested (or for possible inclusion in the next iteration of "Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition (full note)") here's a way to include the name of the newspaper as the author in short-form citations for unsigned newspaper articles:

    In the portion of the code for <macro name="contributors-short"> insert the following after the fourth line:
    <choose>
    <if type="article-newspaper">
    <choose>
    <if variable="author" match="none">
    <text variable="container-title"/>
    </if>
    </choose>
    </if>
    </choose>


    The code will then read:
    <macro name="contributors-short">
    <group delimiter=" ">
    <names variable="author">
    <name form="short" and="text" delimiter=", "/>
    <choose>
    <if type="article-newspaper">

    etc.

    It works for me anyhow.
  • (you need to put CSL code between <code> and </code>)
  • Newspaper (and magazine) titles used in the author position now correctly appear in italics. This has been applied to all 17th ed Chicago note styles
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