Capitalisation issues when switching between citation styles

sgemma
I looked through the forums, but could find few mentions of capitalisation issues, and most referenced APA specifically.

I have noticed an ongoing issue with capitalisation:

Different sites (e.g. PubMed, Google Scholar, etc.) import citations differently. I have noticed some titles import as ALL CAPS, Some As First Letter of Each Word Capitalised, and others as Only first word of title and: Subtitle capitalised. Ok, so no problem for those who work exclusively in one citation style--just manually edit each citation so that when the citation is used, the title appears properly. But I work for a university department that writes for different audiences and therefore uses different styles. Now I have the problem that if I edit the titles according to the rules of APA 6th ed. in Zotero, then when I switch to Chicago, the title comes up as mostly lowercase when Chicago has different capitalisation rules (First Letter of Each Word of Title Capitalised).

Is Zotero looking to remedy this situation? Again, it wouldn't be a bother if the edits made in "Show Editor" or by clicking directly on the reference in the article would "stick," but every time I refresh Zotero (for example, when I want my Bib to update after inserting a new citation in a document), the edits are lost. This is ANOTHER area that could be greatly improved upon.

I'd actually take improvements in either situation: fixing the capitalisation issues when switching between styles OR making edits permanent within that document when made after clicking on Zotero Edit Citation icon --> Show Editor or by clicking directly on the citation. What is the point of allowing you to edit a citation in a document, when those edits are lost as soon as you click the Zotero Refresh icon in Word?

A response from the Zotero team would be most appreciated.

Thanks!
  • ajlyon
    My understanding from previous discussions is that most styles can apply the correct capitalization if you have "sentence case" capitalization in the Zotero database, meaning that the first words and the necessary subsequent words are capitalized (proper nouns, etc., depending on the language of the item). That means that you will have to standardize capitalization as you add items. You may find the text transform menu (right-click on the title in the Zotero item pane) useful as you fix capitalization.
  • adamsmith
    What ajlyon said plus:
    edits made using "Show Editor" are permanent -
    the also prevent any future upgrading of a citation, so they aren't recommended and certainly not before the final editing stages of a document.

    I'm not sure what you have been doing that made you think this isn't the case, but I'm positive it is.

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