SAGE - Vancouver

srtho
Hello,

Does anyone know why the SAGE - Vancouver style in Zotero does not actually align with the Sage Vancouver reference style here https://us.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/sage_vancouver_reference_style_1.pdf ? Can this be updated?
  • damnation
    You'd need to be specific. I don't see anything major pop out at a first look.
  • srtho
    It's pretty simple. If the journal itself says the citations are not formated correctly, Zotero should update it/look into what it needs to correct.
  • adamsmith
    the journal isn't talking to us though. What are they telling you is wrong? (And while it's absolutely possible that there are issues in the style it's also possible that you have incorrect metadata saved in Zotero or that the journal diverges from the official guidance; very hard for us to say without knowing what's not right).
  • LucaFlow
    edited 9 days ago
    I had to fix this for a paper I'm working on today and thought I'd share the solution here in case anyone else needs it.

    You need to modify the style manually, unfortunately. It’s a bit of a hassle, but it's still better than fixing every single citation in your manuscript by hand.

    The main issues with the default Zotero style are that it uses brackets for bibliography numbers instead of a period (e.g., [1] instead of 1.), it incorrectly puts book and journal titles in italics, and it omits page numbers for books.

    To fix this, open the .csl file in a text editor. First, find the line for citation-number and replace prefix="[" suffix="] " with just suffix=". ". Next, search for any font-style="italic" attributes on the title and container-title tags and delete them.

    Finally, to add the missing page numbers for books, you need to find the layout section for books in the bibliography and add a call to the page macro () right after the publisher macro, ensuring they are grouped with a comma. You should also find the page macro itself and change its group delimiter from " " to "" to fix the spacing and get "p.51" instead of "p. 51".

    Then, save the file and it should work correctly.

    If you spot any other errors I might have missed, let me know and I'll take a look.
  • damnation
    edited 9 days ago
    It's not about posting the solution for random people fixing it for themselves, but the style being corrected centrally for everyone if needed.
    Please note that the CSL project is separate from Zotero, maintained by volunteers like Adamsmith and myself. Therefore, we had asked for the specific issues to be pointed out so we can fix them. The more you do the pre work the more efficient we can help.
    Since OP never said anything after asking, we didn't fix anything.
    Based on your description I'll take a look.
  • adamsmith
    edited 9 days ago
    But FWIW, if you look at the style guide posted above, journal and book titles are in italics. The standard SAGE Vancouver styles does use 1. in the bibliography numbers (the brackets style doesn't -- the prescriptions there are fuzzy). Individual pages for books don't exist in Zotero, so not sure how you'd get those in the bibliography.

    So as requested above, specific reports from journals that would like this differently would be helpful. The style is getting used a lot with overall very few issues reported, so I wouldn't assume it's broken for all uses.
  • LucaFlow
    Thank you so much for the quick reply and for the clarification. My apologies, you are absolutely right about the italics.
    With that in mind, the main discrepancy I wanted to report is the numbering format in the bibliography.
    The official SAGE guide clearly shows reference numbers followed by a period (e.g., 1. Huff D...), while the current Zotero style uses brackets (e.g., [1] Huff D...).
    Thank you again for your time and for all the work you do maintaining these styles.
  • adamsmith
    Do you happen to know a journal that follows the brackets in text version of the style? Then we can double check what they use in publication and fix.
  • LucaFlow
    BMC Health Services Research
  • adamsmith
    We already have a separate style for that (and all BMC journals) that looks right: https://www.zotero.org/styles?q=id:bmc-health-services-research
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