Formating error with most CSL styles preinstalled by Zotero

Hi,

I'm not sure if anyone has encountered such a problem. I was formatting my journal paper bibliography and came to this problem. All preinstalled CSL styles treat everything except journal article as a web document when URL field is not empty. Below is an example:

American Medical Association Style

1. Banks E. Catastrophic Risk: Analysis and Management. Chichester, England: J. Wiley & Sons; 2005. Available at: http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&ti=1,1&Search_Arg=Catastrophic Risk Analysis and Management&Search_Code=GKEY^*&CNT=100&type=quick&PID=bNEC0IQjII5xPtG-ObD5p0c4HMTb&SEQ=20100222112403&SID=1.

The correct one should appear like this:

1. Banks E. Catastrophic Risk: Analysis and Management. Chichester, England: J. Wiley & Sons; 2005.

When the URL field is empty. The formatting is OK. However, URL is used when we use "Attach Link to File" to connect the reference to file on our machine or when it's used to refer to the URL where the reference is cataloged.

I've looked into all preinstalled CSL styles, and only IEEE style gives a correct formatting. The culprit in this problem is probably the shortcut used in coding the Conditionals of bibliographic layout and the macro call "<text prefix=" " macro="access" suffix="."/>" at the end of the layout.

What bothers me the most is the possibility that all other styles have the same problem. This will lead to a scary work of rewriting all the styles produced so far.

I hope someone can enlighten me on this issue.
  • edited February 22, 2010
    I'm not clear. Is your point that (1) there shouldn't be a URL at all, or (2) that the URL shouldn't have a period at the end, or that (3) the URL is for the catalogue not the actual item?

    (1) & (2) are easy enough to correct if they need correcting. What is a little more complicated is adjusting styles so that the URLs only appear for certain item types. Generally speaking, URLs show for all item types if the URL field has any content. This can be modified for some item types in Zotero preferences>Styles>Citation Options

    (3) The URL field shouldn't be used for catalogue information only for links to the actual item referenced such as for online journals. Online catalogue information can be be linked to the Zotero item by selecting add attachment>attach link to current page.
  • edited February 22, 2010
    this is not a style problem, so no worries.
    The styles correctly add URLs for materials published online - this is according to their style guides. Only those items should have entries in the URL field (this is slightly different for journal articles from online databases - in those cases by default no URL is added if a page-range is given, even if the URL field contains information).

    I'm not sure how the LoC URL got into your URL field, but if things work correctly it shouldn't be there.
    "Attach Link to File" will not add anything into the URL field.
    If a link is added for the directory an item was retrieved from, it should be as an attachment and not in the URL field. The URL field is reserved for the URL where the actual publication can be retrieved - if such a URL exists.

    edit: also what James says, but I thought this might add some additional clarification.
  • Thanks for all the responses. I've tried to look at it again and something is getting clearer.

    I used EndNote before. When switching to Zotero, I export my EndNote library and import it into Zotero. Some of my references were linked to local documents on my hard drive. It turned out that the links become a URL in Zotero after the import. The only solution is to erase all URL from Zotero and reconnect all those references again. Problem solved, although it's a tedious work.

    Again, thanks for all the comment. They are helpful.
Sign In or Register to comment.