MDPI Open Access Journal style support (Endnote file available)

Hi,

would it be possible to get citation style support for the MDPI Open Access
Journals (http://www.mdpi.com/about/journals)? An Endnote style file is available here: http://www.mdpi.com/files/word-templates/MDPI.ens

Style guide: http://www.mdpi.com/authors/references

I didn't find the exact one for Zotero, only similar styles... Perhaps the MDPI.ens could be converted?

thanks
Markus
  • edited November 27, 2009
    http://www.zotero.org/support/requesting_styles
    see esp. point number 2.
    Perhaps the MDPI.ens could be converted?
    no, not possible - though you can try using it: You can add .ens styles in 2.0 using the style manager in the preferences.
  • how cool, it works! (after I found "preferences" :)
  • You'll want to check the output from the imported style to ensure that it's correct.
  • Indeed, one flaw is there: all YEARs have a letter attached (a, b, ...) in the order of appearance in the bibiography (so 1998a, 2002b, 1965c, 2009d etc).

    Can I hack the style locally or do I have to fix that manually?
  • that's the problem with endnote styles - you can't fix them for Zotero.
    It's probably worth making a new Zotero style for the journal then - see the page I link to above.
  • edited November 10, 2010
    The MDPI Reference List and Citations Style Guide linked above states that:
    "MDPI’s style for citations and references lists are widely based on the style used by the American Chemical Society."

    So, according to the guidelines for making a new Zotero style, it looks like the next step would be to "itemize the precise differences" between MDPI's style and ACS, documenting them in comments on this thread page. Based on the list of differences, someone with the right skills in XML and the Citation Style Language would be able to create the style.
  • edited November 11, 2010
    Here is a list of things which I had to correct after using Zotero’s style “American Chemical Society with Titles” in order to make references consistent with the MDPI style. In other words, these are differences between MDPI style and ACS with Titles.

    Reference Numbers
    • 1. Author 1; not (1)[Tab]Author
    • References flush left all lines, no indent for second or later lines

    Books
    • Title capitalization
    • Edition if available
    • City, Country Abbreviation
    • For US: City, State Abbreviation, Country Abbreviation

    Journals
    • Article titles use title capitalization
    • ISO4 abbreviations for journal titles
    • Journal titles use title capitalization

    Note 1. In case it’s helpful, a workaround for the lack of an MDPI style, if the reference list isn’t too long, is to have Zotero use the ACS with Titles style to do the tricky work of inserting the article numbers in the text and generating the bibliography in sequence. Then copy the bibliography and paste as unformatted text, and manually make the necessary corrections as above, (including restoring italics and bold). That’s best done once the reference list is finalized, but if a citation does need to be added or dropped, autonumbering the reference list will allow changing a citation without having to redo everything.

    Note 2. There are known issues with capitalization of article titles, which are not yet handled well by Zotero styles, so capitalization of titles may have to be done manually anyway. http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/2496/capitalization-of-journal-article-titles-in-bibliographies/
  • • City, Country Abbreviation
    • For US: City, State Abbreviation, Country Abbreviation
    Zotero does not have the ability to reformat place names.
    • ISO4 abbreviations for journal titles
    Presently, you will have to enter abbreviations manually.
    That leaves the tab and left justification issues (are these documented?) and the edition to fix (how is this rendered)?
  • Thanks for the quick response.
    The left justification is visible in the Style Guide linked in the first post in this thread. The examples in there can be copied and pasted to confirm the #.space in contrast to the (#)tab produced by ACS with Titles. The downloadable PDF version of the MDPI Style Guide says:
    "The edition number is appended at the end of the title, separated with by a coma, with the edition number as an ordinal number (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.) followed by ‘ed.’. The letters in the ordinal number should not be put in superscript. ‘ed.’ should not be capitalized to avoid confusion with the abbreviation for editors (that is ‘Ed.’ or ‘Eds.’)."

    Note that I'm not claiming my list is complete, just documenting the things I observed while working on a particular article.
  • I wrote to MDPI and got the following information:

    MDPI's style is based on ACS style. The main differences are:

    a) journal article references: full title must be added (capitalization
    of the title is irrelevant) ("Irrelevant" capitalization means it can just be taken as provided by the Publisher. MDPI editors will take care of correcting the capitalization during the copy-editing stage for those papers accepted after peer-review.)

    b) book references: Country information for the Publisher is added.

    c) for all types of references, author and editor information: no
    whitespace added between the abbreviation of several given names

    Dietrich Hans-Paul Rordorf

    Rordorf, D. H.-P. (ACS style)
    Rordorf, D.H.-P. (MDPI style)

    -------------------------------------------------
    -------------------------------------------------
    So, based on this and the discussion above, it looks like it should be fairly straightforward to create a style based on the ACS with Titles style, although the country of publication would still have to be added manually, as would the ISO abbreviations for journal titles.
  • I also received a further clarification that ISO abbreviations are dealt with later in the editing process.

    "About the ISO4 abbreviation, actually EndNote is also not able
    to do it correctly. We have to check and correct them anyway through one
    of our in-house copy-editors."
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