How to eliminate comma before ampersand?

jkwekjrewl
I'm trying to modify the Unified Stylesheet for Linguistics Journals so that in-line citations do NOT have a comma before an ampersand. Currently, it outputs this:

Smith, Jones, & Jackson

And I need to change the CSL so that it outputs THIS:

Smith, Jones & Jackson

I've been fiddling with the CSL file to no avail. Can someone lend me a helping hand, perhaps?

Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    edited December 7, 2009
    put
    delimiter-precedes-last="never"
    after and="symbol" in the
    "contributor-short" macro

    P.S. Is the current version of the unified stylesheet correct or are you trying to correct it?
  • jkwekjrewl
    Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, it's not quite working out. My CSL now reads as follows, and yet I still get "A, B, &C" instead of "A, B & C":

    <macro name="contributors-short">
    <names variable="author">
    <name form="short" and="symbol" delimiter-precedes-last="never" delimiter=", "/>
    <substitute>
    <names variable="editor"/>
    <names variable="translator"/>
    </substitute>
    </names>
    </macro>

    I'm trying to fix the current version of the Unified Stylesheet, by the way.
  • adamsmith
    uhm - no?
    I just tested this and it works. You probably have a typo somewhere in your style and so it doesn't update anymore, but the fix is definitely correct.
  • jkwekjrewl
    Ah, I now see that there is an additional problem -- the change you suggested does indeed work, but only on unmodified citations. It is not applied to any citations that I modified.

    Note that I did the modifications in the Zotero "Insert Cite" editor window, and not on the citations themselves, which is (as I understand it) the way this should be done. And now, no matter how many times I update the citations and bibliography in Word, the modified citations are NOT updated (and I have selected the citations before updating).

    So you can get an idea of the extent of this issue, when I change style sheets completely, no cites that have ever been modified are updated.

    Zotero isn't supposed to work this way, is it?
  • adamsmith
    yes it is supposed to work that way.
    Using the editor "breaks" a citation and it isn't updated anymore.
    The reason for that is that it would be impossible to tell how changes would be dealt with during updating.
    Using the editor is better than fiddling in the citation (which will usually just get overwritten) but the "right" way is to work with prefix and suffix and don't edit manually at all. Sorry that's going to be such a drag for you, that's really unfortunate, there probably should be better documentation on this.
  • jkwekjrewl
    Thanks again for your help! You got my comma problem fixed for me, and I greatly appreciate it.

    By the way, I just re-read the Unified Stylesheet PDF and it does indeed say that there should be no commas before ampersands. I wouldn't dare go messing around in an official CSL myself, but if you're wiling and able, it would probably be a good idea.

    As to Zotero "breaking" edited citations, I understand the logic of it now. I'd just say that making the changes in the editor does give the idea that the changes are "Zotero-compatible", so it would be a good idea to warn people of that somewhere.

    A quick question while you're here -- almost all the edits I have done involve removing the parentheses from around a cite, and changing semi-colons to commas. There are occasions when you need to say things like: "The data from Smith (1996), Jones (2000) and Jackson (2005) shows...", rather than "The data (Smith 1996; Jones 2000; Jackson 2005) shows...".

    Is there a Zotero-compatible way to do that?
  • adamsmith
    Yeah, fair enough about "Zotero compatible" - I'm not sure what would be a good solution there.

    I'll fix the style as soon as I get a chance.

    For your last question - yes there is: you type the author's name by hand and then insert the citation, checking the "supress author" box, which gives you (1996)
  • fbennett
    When you edit or insert a citation in the wordprocessor, the popup box should have a tickbox somewhere for "Suppress author". You need to type the name of the author into the text directly, but the cite's inclusion in the bibliography and so forth will be handled properly.
  • jkwekjrewl
    Thanks again!
  • Cadilone
    Hi adamsmith,
    I did the modifications in the Zotero and get partial answer:
    1) Comma before "and" in references, has been removed:
    Buela-Casal, G., Bermúdez, M. P. and Sierra, J. C. (2010). Ranking de 2009 en investigación de las universidades públicas españolas.
    2) Comma before "and" in citations: Pending
    (Buela-Casal, Bermúdez, and Sierra, 2010)

    Please advise in this matter.
    Thanks,
  • adamsmith
    edited February 24, 2020
    you'd have to mention the citation style you're using, but you likely just missed one iteration of where this is called, likely in a macro called author-short or so.
    Ever line starting with <name should include delimiter-precedes-last="never"
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