Cite a book chapter

I have viewed the FAQ and it does not really resolve my question.

How do I cite a book chapter?

Here is the book I am citing from:
http://www.amazon.com/Rothman-Simeone-The-Spine-Rothman-Simeone/dp/B00E6TQ118/ref=tmm_hrd_title_1
I can "Save to Zotero" from the Amazon site to put it in my library.

Now I understand that it should be a new "Book Section" correct? However when I click the green "New Item" button, there is no option to generate based on the existing "The Spine" book that I previously saved. Do I have to type in all the information manually?
Also where does the chapter # go? Under "Volume" or something? Or do I just put it in the title like "Chapter 20 - Lateral and Posterior Exposure.."

Please help. Thanks!
  • use right-click --> duplicate item on the book, then change on of them to book section and fill in the missing fields.

    There's currently no field for chapter number, if you do want it included in the citation you'll have to include it into the title, yes. Don't use any other field, that's just going to give you wrong citations.
  • Has Zoter really not improved this in the last roughly 7 years? It still appears not possible to cite a chapter in a book. Is there a way to do this now??? Thanks for the info!
  • It was possible 7 years ago and is possible now. https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/edited_volumes_and_book_chapters is the FAQ referenced above.

    If this isn't clear, we'd need more specific questions to be helpful.
  • To make it clearer what makes it complicated. It is oftentimes difficult to automatically fill the fields for book chapter. Though it is easier to automatically get the whole book.
    Having the book in my library. Is it possible to just add one (or various) chapter titles with the names of the authors? Maybe the pages, too? The rest is equal anyway. I mean in way that these references are directly associated in Zotero and not treated like two independent references?
  • I think there is an argument for having a ‘Create chapter in book’ command which essentially does what @adamsmith describes above - duplicates the book and changes the type to book section - as well as linking to the original book as a related item.

    Ideally, I think that book sections should be able to be nested under their containing book, but the logic for this probably needs a lot of thinking through. Papers was one of the few reference managers to handle book sections intuitively.
  • The Zutilo add-on provides a command/shortcut that does exactly this.

    Yes, being able to group items hierarchical has long been discussed, but I don't see this happening any time soon, though it'd definitely be nice.
Sign In or Register to comment.