I'm using a number of sources that have no authors, e.g. newspaper articles and web pages. I'm using a version of harvard and I'm having problems figuring out how to format both the in-text citations and the bibliography properly for these references.
At the moment, the in-text citations that have no authors just look like this:
(, 2006)
I've read the custom citations section of the user guide, and I sort of understand how to *exclude* text that is dependent on an empty field, e.g. how to exclude a comma following the author when there is no author, but I don't know how to *include* text only when a field is empty.
In this case, I would like to replace the author field with the title field when the author field is empty.
obviously, just using
{at}
wouldn't work because most references have both author and title.
The second problem is that the bibliography entries look like this:
(2006a) 'Community Sites as Games: The Tip of the Iceberg.' Lost Garden, Retrieved 11 July 2006 from <http://lostgarden.com/2006/06/community ... ip-of.html>
(2005) 'Best Leaders: Entrepeneurs.' Retrieved 17 July 2006 from <http://images.businessweek.com/ss/05/12 ... rce/19.htm>
(2004) 'Generation "C".' Trendwatching, Retrieved 16 May 2004 from <http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/GENERATION_C.htm>
(2006c) 'Ludicorp Research & Development Ltd.' Yahoo! Finance, Retrieved 23 July 2006 from <http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/136/136786.html>
(2006b) 'Business 2.0: 50 People Who Matter.' CNN Money, Retrieved 17 July 2006 from <http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/p ... clude.html>
The bibliography is set to sort by Author,Date,Title but i can't figure out why it is sorting them like this. Is there a way to convince bookends to sort by Title when there is no Author?
Can anybody help?
citing/sorting by title when reference has no author
First, sorry about removing you as a registered user -- done inadvertently while removing spammers. Please just register again.
Second, if you use author-date citations and there is no author, the comma should be suppressed. I'll look into that. But to answer you question, I think the workaround would be to enter the title in the title AND author field as well. End it with a comma, and Bookends will output the whole thing. The problem with this approach is that the bibliography will output the title where the authors goes, too. So you would have to create a Type for this kind of reference (Anonymous, for example) and edit the format accordingly.
Bookends sort by editor if there is no author. If there are neither, it sorts by title. The output you post here looks unsorted altogether.
Jon
Sonny Software
Second, if you use author-date citations and there is no author, the comma should be suppressed. I'll look into that. But to answer you question, I think the workaround would be to enter the title in the title AND author field as well. End it with a comma, and Bookends will output the whole thing. The problem with this approach is that the bibliography will output the title where the authors goes, too. So you would have to create a Type for this kind of reference (Anonymous, for example) and edit the format accordingly.
Bookends sort by editor if there is no author. If there are neither, it sorts by title. The output you post here looks unsorted altogether.
Jon
Sonny Software
thanks Jon, it works! I've created a new reference type which puts titles in the place of authors in the bibliography, but as the title is also in the author field of the database they are still sorted correctly in the bibliography.
Wish I'd thought of that.
By the way, you're right, the references with no authors were not being sorted, just dumped at the top of the bibliography like that.
Wish I'd thought of that.
By the way, you're right, the references with no authors were not being sorted, just dumped at the top of the bibliography like that.
Jeez, I was just tearing my hair out over this, and voila -- so simple. (Fancy meeting you here, jeangenie.)
Jon, this is related, but tangential: I've been using Smart Groups to separate my references by type, but now that I've added a new type for anonymous references, I have to make a Smart Group that includes two types (i.e. adding the anonymous type to my magazine article list), using an SQL query like "(type = 9) OR (type = 17)" -- which is especially cryptic because it's based on the type index rather than anything human-readable.
But for the creation of a new type just for anonymous cases of another type, I'd never have to do this. Is there any chance of adding to Smart Groups the type of "add search term with a '+' button" interface that Apple has implemented for Smart Playlists/Mailboxes?
Jon, this is related, but tangential: I've been using Smart Groups to separate my references by type, but now that I've added a new type for anonymous references, I have to make a Smart Group that includes two types (i.e. adding the anonymous type to my magazine article list), using an SQL query like "(type = 9) OR (type = 17)" -- which is especially cryptic because it's based on the type index rather than anything human-readable.
But for the creation of a new type just for anonymous cases of another type, I'd never have to do this. Is there any chance of adding to Smart Groups the type of "add search term with a '+' button" interface that Apple has implemented for Smart Playlists/Mailboxes?
Oh, I don't mean changing the the Smart SQL Group interface, but rather letting people add extra parameters in a mix-and-match manner to an ordinary Smart Group. So if they want to create a Smart Group that collects two reference types, they don't have to learn SQL syntax and count off the index numbers of the "type" field. (Not that this is hard for many of us -- just not intuitive or readable.)
Currently, in the Smart Group dialog you've got multiple text fields already set up with AND/OR/NOT between them, which is cool. But these fields and logic only apply to either all fields or just one specific field that you've chosen, right? And you can only include one reference type to search for.
I'd love it if the Smart Group dialog, like the iTunes Smart Playlist dialog, started off with just one parameter: "[any field] [contains] ______" (where things in square brackets are drop-down menus). You could then click on a "+" button to the right of that line and add, say, "[reference type] [is] [journal]", etc.
The problem with Apple's existing Smart Folders/Playlists/Mailboxes is that you can't add AND/OR/NOT operators between each parameter line -- I assume because they thought the interface would be unwieldy. But surely it's a matter of adding an "AND/OR/NOT" drop-down to the right of each parameter once another parameter is added? So I'd be able to add "OR [reference type] [is] [anonymous magazine article]" to my search. Apparently Leopard is adding boolean operators to Mail.app's Smart Groups.
I guess what I'm suggesting is a more flexible GUI front-end for Smart Groups that takes it further towards the pure flexibility of the SQL syntax, but without any usability hit.
Currently, in the Smart Group dialog you've got multiple text fields already set up with AND/OR/NOT between them, which is cool. But these fields and logic only apply to either all fields or just one specific field that you've chosen, right? And you can only include one reference type to search for.
I'd love it if the Smart Group dialog, like the iTunes Smart Playlist dialog, started off with just one parameter: "[any field] [contains] ______" (where things in square brackets are drop-down menus). You could then click on a "+" button to the right of that line and add, say, "[reference type] [is] [journal]", etc.
The problem with Apple's existing Smart Folders/Playlists/Mailboxes is that you can't add AND/OR/NOT operators between each parameter line -- I assume because they thought the interface would be unwieldy. But surely it's a matter of adding an "AND/OR/NOT" drop-down to the right of each parameter once another parameter is added? So I'd be able to add "OR [reference type] [is] [anonymous magazine article]" to my search. Apparently Leopard is adding boolean operators to Mail.app's Smart Groups.
I guess what I'm suggesting is a more flexible GUI front-end for Smart Groups that takes it further towards the pure flexibility of the SQL syntax, but without any usability hit.
Ah, I see. The Find dialog (and the basic smart group is the same) is meant to provide a simple interface that's accessible and satisfies the vast majority of needs. The SQL search is provided for power users who need more. At least, that't the theory.
As a point of academic interest, there is another solution. You could make two (or more) smart searches, one for the text and, say, reference Type. The other for reference Type alone. Then when you select both (and AND is showing in the pop-up menu below the groups) you'd have the search you want. I'm not saying this is preferable to other solutions, just pointing out another aspect of searching in Bookends.
Jon
Sonny Software
As a point of academic interest, there is another solution. You could make two (or more) smart searches, one for the text and, say, reference Type. The other for reference Type alone. Then when you select both (and AND is showing in the pop-up menu below the groups) you'd have the search you want. I'm not saying this is preferable to other solutions, just pointing out another aspect of searching in Bookends.
Jon
Sonny Software
I have a problem when citing references by title. I followed your tip Jon, and made the author field the same as the title field. My problem is that if I have three such references in the same year, Bookends cites them as 2005a, 2005b, and 2005b, even though the author field is different for each one.
Hi Jon
Actually, I think I've worked out what I was doing wrong.
Because I was citing films by their titles and the titles were usually in the text, I had created a custom citation format that was just "d".
So the temporary citation was {Dear Pyongyang, 2006} or whatever, to try to produce the citation (2006), but it was actually producing (2006b) or whatever. By having a custom citation format that's "a d" or even "t d" and having a temporary citation with %, {%Dear Pyongyang, 2006}, I get the desired effect.
On a related note, I'm having trouble getting the ignore lists to work. I've added "A", "An" and "The" to the Author field in Preferences/Bibliography sort, but "The" titles still seem to be with the t's.
Thanks for always responding so quickly!
Actually, I think I've worked out what I was doing wrong.
Because I was citing films by their titles and the titles were usually in the text, I had created a custom citation format that was just "d".
So the temporary citation was {Dear Pyongyang, 2006} or whatever, to try to produce the citation (2006), but it was actually producing (2006b) or whatever. By having a custom citation format that's "a d" or even "t d" and having a temporary citation with %, {%Dear Pyongyang, 2006}, I get the desired effect.
On a related note, I'm having trouble getting the ignore lists to work. I've added "A", "An" and "The" to the Author field in Preferences/Bibliography sort, but "The" titles still seem to be with the t's.
Thanks for always responding so quickly!