"ignore words" - ignore prefix?

[talazem]

I have a bunch of works in my database which are transliterated from other languages, including Arabic. Some of the tiles or authors begin with "al-", which simply means "the" in Arabic. However, I would like for the list to be sorted according to the word that follows this prefix; for example, the name "Al-Ghazali" should be sorted in the "G" part of the list.

Is there any way to have the "Bibliography sort: ignore words" also ignore specified prefixes? If I remember correctly, when I was trialling Endnotes, it could do this.

This is essential for proper sorting of some foreign texts in which prefixes and articles such as "the" are built into the word. I thought of separating between the "Al" and the rest of the word with a space, in which the "ignore words" would work; however, this would adversely affect the bibliography, as it *is* meant to be attached with the dash (-) in transliteration.

Is there anyway to effect this, or could this be modified in a future version? Thank you.

[Jon]

There is no way to do this for authors. It works for titles, but as you say it must be a word. I'll think about ways it might be possible to do this with words that don't end with a space.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jon]

This is do-able. But it seems best to do this on a case-by-case basis. Are there any other punctuation marks (other than the hyphen) that might designate the end of a prefix?

Jon
Sonny Software

[talazem]

The only transliteration snags I've run into so far are those for Arabic. The possible prefixes are "al-", "Al-", "el-", and "El-". The demarker for the end of the prefix is uniformally the dash/hypen (-) for transliterating Arabic words and names.

When you mentioned that it is do-able, I hope that you meant for authors' names as well, because in sorting a bibliography, that's where it matters most.

Thanks!

[frvs]

When you mentioned that it is do-able, I hope that you meant for authors' names as well, because in sorting a bibliography, that's where it matters most.

Thanks!

I am glad someone else brings up this old request. Beyond Arabic, this ability is also important for balancing correct citation of compounded names and sorting by last name. It matters a lot for Spanish and Portuguese names, and (in perhaps a lesser measure) for French and German/Dutch names as well.

For example, I'd like to be able to cite:
van Gennep, Arnold
sorted in G.

Or,
Leite de Vasconcelos, José
sorted in V

[tharpold]

I am glad someone else brings up this old request. Beyond Arabic, this ability is also important for balancing correct citation of compounded names and sorting by last name. It matters a lot for Spanish and Portuguese names, and (in perhaps a lesser measure) for French and German/Dutch names as well.

If I may chime in for a related concern -- I've been a little frustrated by Bookends's practice of sorting authors in the database, placing accented characters after the last unaccented character in that position in a list.

For example, this is the sequence in which the list view displays these authors:

Pynchon, Thomas
Pérez-Gómez, Alberto

-- where the first e of "Perez" and the first o of "Gomez" include acute accents. It would be much preferable to place Pérez-Gómez much "higher" in the sort order, after the unaccented "Pe..." names.

TH

[Jon]

Bookends 9.0.1 will be able to ignore the first word of a title if it ends in a hyphen. So you can ignore Al- and al- and the rest.

Bookends can't ignore words in the Authors field. I haven't forgotten the request, but this is more difficult to implement.

Jon
Sonny Software

[talazem]

Thanks for the improvement, Jon, but as you can see from this thread, I think the need for the ability to manipulate prefixes and other foreign elements is in the authors' names, not so much in the titles, since the names is where organization usually takes place.

That being said, I'm not a coder or programmer, and as such don't know what that takes; so, I'll simply hope that you'll be able to implement it at some point in the future. For academic users of your software - who I'm assuming most users are - such "internationalization" is key.

All the same: thanks for your prompt your responses, and your continual improvement of the software! I personally just purchased the program a few days ago, and one of the main reasons is that the developer has always been so involved with his clients. Jon has always tried to respond to users' needs, while simultaneously not losing sight of the vision of the product, which is ultimately his. That can't be said for many of the other "big fish" in this market of software. Keep up the good work, Jon.

[Waystone]

A bit of an old thread, but this seems to fit

Is there any way to mark an author as an organization, so that it remains as-typed in the bibliography? For example, at the moment the DSM-IV is automatically formatted like this:

Association, A. P. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text rev. ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

... instead of, like this:

American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text rev. ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

... and I have to go back and change it manually in the reference section each time.

Thanks! Loving the look of the new version.

-N.

[Jon]

Hi, thanks.

Yes. Follow the institutional name with a comma, like:

American Psychiatric Association,

and Bookends will leave it as is.

Jon
Sonny Software