Short notes for books but not for newspapers and documents?

Dear kind folks who understand zotero,

I am finishing up a book manuscript. It is a history book and it will have a bibliography. My preference is to use "Chicago 17th edition (note)" for books and journal articles, but not for newspapers and archival documents

This is because newspapers, like archival sources, will appear in the bibliography only in the broadest sense (eg, "New York Times," "US National Archives") so to only have the short note in the footnotes will mean the note is incomplete.

Using "note" (rather than "full note") reduces the word count and clutter considerably, but it also creates a situation where newspaper articles are improperly cited.

Is there a work-around? A way to say "if book or journal article, use short note. But if newspaper or document, use full note"????

I can go back to using full note, but once I combine all the chapters into one word doc (so as to not repeat full citations at the start of each chapter), Zotero freaks out and can't handle it.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP, Kind zotero ppl!!!
-fps
  • It's possible to modify the style accordingly, but not trivial. Otherwise I'm afraid not, no.
    I can go back to using full note, but once I combine all the chapters into one word doc (so as to not repeat full citations at the start of each chapter), Zotero freaks out and can't handle it.
    Sorry, that part I don't follow.
  • @adamsmith, Thank you so much for your reply!!

    The unclear part is my weak attempt to say that one solution might be to combine the chapters into a single word doc and use full note. (That way, a book cited in chapter 1 will get the full note in at first mention-- in chapter 1-- but not in subsequent mentions, even if they are in Chapter 3 or 4.) This has huge advantages, but...
    when I get close to 1,500 citations in a single document, Zotero tends to crash.

    Do you think there is a way to avoid this crashing?
  • I wouldn't recommend _writing_ in such a big doc, but generally Zotero should be able to handle it, albeit slowly (unless you're on Word for Mac; it might actually not finish there).
  • Word for Mac, sadly. Thank you for your help! I think I have a plan, now that I know the range of possibilities. Thank you again!
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