Book Edition Field - Best Practice?

DWL-SDCA
So that the output works with different styles and languages:
What should be in the edition field--
a simple number "2";
a number with a suffix "2nd";
a number with a suffix and a (book) language-specific abbreviation "2nd ed."?

I have each of these various types in my book records. I don't know what was in the imported metadata.

When editing my Zotero book, book-section, and report records, what format is expected to allow the style to produce the proper output?
  • adamsmith
    edited May 5, 2013
    the way this is and should be handled in most styles will treat "2" and "2nd" identical - i.e. internally this is just a "2" and gets formatted into ordinals etc. as needed. For regular editions either of those two are recommended.

    Anything that's not just a number (with a prefix/suffix like nd, a, c etc.) - including "2nd ed." will be printed verbatim, which is typically not ideal (as a style may require "2nd edition" "second edition" etc.). This is useful, though, were additional information is given for the edition as in "2nd revised edition" or so.
  • DWL-SDCA
    This is very helpful information.

    Thanks.
  • Zorozero
    Very useful answer.

    Is it possible to bulk change something like "2." to "2"? or "2nd" to "2"?

    Same for language.
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