the "Extra" Field when citing books

Hello,
I use the "Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition with Ibid" in my citations. However, I've encountered an issue where my "Extra" field doesn't appear in any of my citations, except if it includes the characters "DOI." How can I configure Zotero to incorporate the extra field whenever it contains any information, even if it's just words without a link or DOI?

Thank you.
  • What are you trying to enter in Extra that you want to appear in your bibliography?
  • I want to add additional information about the original title of the book before translation. So, simply just words.
  • The appropriate way to add the original title (or other citation fields like DOI, etc) is to write it like this in Extra:
    Original title: This is the original title

    Any valid CSL field can be added that way and styles that are written to use those variables will show them https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/item_types_and_fields
  • Thank you for your prompt response. However, the contents in the "Extra" field only appear if it starts with "DOI"; otherwise, the content does not show in my citation. Could this be a problem in the code of the style itself?
  • edited December 10, 2023
    You need to specify the CSL variable type that you are entering as an extra, not just the value:
    https://docs.citationstyles.org/en/stable/specification.html#appendix-iv-variables

    For example, use original-title as the type for your original title.
    Then the style must actually use that variable type. It should be the case if its guidelines say that this information must be included in citations.
  • edited December 10, 2023
    Please look at my example:

    Original title: This is the original title


    The first part is the CSL variable name (original-title in this case; you can capitalize and use spaces to make it more readable for you), then a colon, then the title
  • This is very helpful. I did use "original-title" in the Extra field, but it did not show up in the citation. However, when I put the needed information in the URL field, it does show up.

    I am using "Chicago Style 17th Edition with Note and Ibid" style.

    Any thoughts?
  • As others said -- you need to modify the citation style for additional variables to show up. I don't think many (any?) citation styles work out of the box for this.
  • You're right! I worked on it last night and figured it all out. I have edited my style to add all the fields I need.

    Thank you for your help!
  • rhwork, would you mind sharing your edits to the style for original-title, as I'm trying to do the same with SBL2, but I'm not as proficient with editing csl code. It'd be much appreciated.
  • @JohnDuffy, I wasn't able to implement exactly what @bwiernik suggested due to a lack of the necessary technical knowledge. However, I found an alternative solution by creating conditional statements in my citation code to address the issue, and it worked perfectly. My book is coming out on September 2nd. I'm happy to share more details if you're interested.
  • @rhwork Thanks, I'd appreciate you sharing how you did that. I'd like to try that since I prefer getting the csl to work, rather than having to convert the citations to plain text afterwards and make manual edits.
  • What citation style are you using?
  • The SBL Handbook of Style 2nd edition (society-of-biblical-literature-fullnote-bibliography)
  • @JohnDuffy, I use Chicago 17th. This is what I did.

    Using a Visual CSL Editor, I clicked on the DOI number. Then, under the "If Not (Legal Case)" section, I added a condition: if the variable contains "original-title," a prefix of "(orig. pub. as" and a suffix will be added in the affixes.

    In this case, whenever the "Extra" field contains something that starts with "original-title," the content after it will be included at the end of the citation.

    You can create similar conditional statements for any additional information and add them to the "Extra" field.

    This process might seem a bit challenging at first, but it's quite manageable. Just be sure to refer to the Standard Variables listed in this link:

    https://docs.citationstyles.org/en/stable/specification.html#appendix-iv-variables
  • Thanks @rhwork

    I've tried to use a Visual CSL editor, but wasn't able to find one where I could follow your instructions. I tried editing the code directly, but wasn't successful. I'll just leave it for now and edit the few entries that have a different original date manually.
  • I am happy to hop on a quick Zoom call to review how you can achieve that. If you feel comfortable sharing your email, I can send it to you at a time that is convenient for you.
  • That'd be really helpful. Thanks. My email is johnduffy at cgcf.ie.
  • Just emailed you.
  • That was really helpful. Thank you so much for your help @rhwork
  • I am happy I was able to help!
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