Citation Question

M

Michelle

In my bibliography I have authors with mulitple works. According to MLA
format then my citation needs to include the title of the work. Like this
"(ICBL "Landmine Monitor Report 2007")

But this doesn't happen automagically in Word. Yes, automagically. I love
the referencing tools that 2007 has and I think they are magical.

In any case, how do I go about getting my citations to do this?

To be clear this is what the bib would look like:

ICBL. "Colombia: Landmine Monitor Report 2007"

---"Colombia: Landmine Monitor Report 2008"

It wouldnt make sense if all of my citations just said (ICBL). Then the
reader doesn't know which one I am citing. It's standard MLA format to
include the title in the citation if the author has more than one work. If
you can't help me figure this out, I will get expelled from school for
plagiarism or get an F for improper citations!! I will have to sue Microsoft!!

Just kidding, I doubt that will happen. Besides, I wouldn't sue a fly. :)
 
Y

Yves Dhondt

I don't know if the MLA format is correctly implemented in Word. However, if
you do have multiple works by the same author, the title is included in the
in-text citation in Word when using MLA. So you not seeing it means
something is wrong.

Have you suppressed the title? Right-click the in-text citation and select
"Edit Citation" to see what parts you might have suppressed.

Are you sure the authors are identical? "NATO" is not the same as "nato".
And do you use the same format for both (person author versus corporation)?

Regards,

Yves
 
M

Michelle

The bibliography shows up correctly, showing that the author is the same on
them. Its just not in the in-text citation. I have not suppressed the title.
Nothing is suppressed. I have though found that by suppressing the title and
can get the "Short title" and I have tried to just put the correct citation
in the short title and then always do that. However, thats getting tedious. I
just want it to automagically be correct. The title is still not included.

Although this does make me feel bad for getting mad at the microsoft people
when they emailed me. All they told me to do was to edit my citation.

I got mad because it was not at all helpful. They told me to click on manage
sources and then click "Edit source." made me angry.

anyways, I dont know whats wrong then.
 
Y

Yves Dhondt

I just tested it. The title is displayed if the author is the author of
multiple works.

I used the following VBA code for my test (just so you could test it
yourself)

=== Start of code ===
Public Function TestMLA()
Dim book1 As String
Dim book2 As String
Dim book3 As String

' Define a first book by John Doe.
book1 = "<b:Source xmlns:b=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/" & _
"office/word/2004/10/bibliography""><b:Tag>Doe01</b:Tag>" & _
"<b:SourceType>Book</b:SourceType><b:Author><b:Author>" & _
"<b:NameList><b:person><b:Last>Doe</b:Last>" & _
"<b:First>John</b:First></b:person></b:NameList></b:Author>" & _
"</b:Author><b:Title>A first book</b:Title>" & _
"<b:Year>2008</b:Year><b:City>London</b:City>" & _
"</b:Source>"

' Define a second book by John Doe.
book2 = "<b:Source xmlns:b=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/" & _
"office/word/2004/10/bibliography""><b:Tag>Doe02</b:Tag>" & _
"<b:SourceType>Book</b:SourceType><b:Author><b:Author>" & _
"<b:NameList><b:person><b:Last>Doe</b:Last>" & _
"<b:First>John</b:First></b:person></b:NameList></b:Author>" & _
"</b:Author><b:Title>A second book</b:Title>" & _
"<b:Year>2009</b:Year><b:City>London</b:City>" & _
"</b:Source>"

' Define a third book by Charles Darwin.
book3 = "<b:Source xmlns:b=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/" & _
"office/word/2004/10/bibliography""><b:Tag>Dar01</b:Tag>" & _
"<b:SourceType>Book</b:SourceType><b:Author><b:Author>" & _
"<b:NameList><b:person><b:Last>Darwin</b:Last>" & _
"<b:First>Charles</b:First></b:person></b:NameList></b:Author>" & _
"</b:Author><b:Title>On the origin of species</b:Title>" & _
"<b:Year>1859</b:Year><b:City>London</b:City>" & _
"</b:Source>"

' Delete all text currently in the active document.
ActiveDocument.Select
Selection.WholeStory
Selection.Delete

' All sources are now unused and can be deleted.
For idx = ActiveDocument.Bibliography.Sources.Count To 1 Step -1
ActiveDocument.Bibliography.Sources.Item(idx).Delete
Next

' Add the two books.
ActiveDocument.Bibliography.Sources.Add book1
ActiveDocument.Bibliography.Sources.Add book2
ActiveDocument.Bibliography.Sources.Add book3

' Set the style to MLA.
ActiveDocument.Bibliography.BibliographyStyle = "MLA"

' Add some basic text with both works cited in it.
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
ActiveWindow.View.ShowFieldCodes = True

ActiveDocument.Select
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory

' Add some text.
Selection.InsertAfter "Some text "
Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdMove

' Add the first citation.
Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, Text:=
_
"CITATION Doe01", PreserveFormatting:=False
Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdMove

' Add some more text.
Selection.InsertAfter " some more text "
Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdMove

' Add the second citation.
Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, Text:=
_
"CITATION Doe02", PreserveFormatting:=False
Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdMove

' Add some more text.
Selection.InsertAfter " and yet some more text "
Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdMove

' Add the third citation.
Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, Text:=
_
"CITATION Dar01", PreserveFormatting:=False
Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdMove

' Add some more text.
Selection.InsertAfter " and some final text." & vbCrLf & _
vbCrLf & "Bibliography" & vbCrLf
Selection.MoveDown Unit:=wdLine, Count:=3, Extend:=wdMove

' Add a bibliography.
Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, Text:=
_
"BIBLIOGRAPHY", PreserveFormatting:=False

ActiveWindow.View.ShowFieldCodes = False
Selection.Fields.Update
Application.ScreenUpdating = True

End Function
=== End of code ===

The result I got is:

=== Start text ===
Some text (Doe, A first book) some more text (Doe, A second book) and yet
some more text (Darwin) and some final text.

Bibliography
Darwin, Charles. On the origin of species. London, 1859.
Doe, John. A first book. London, 2008.
—. A second book. London, 2009.
=== End text ===

which seems to be exactly what one would expect. As "John Doe" has written
two books, their titles are displayed in the in-text citation. As Darwin has
only one citation, the title isn't displayed.

If you are not seeing the title, I really think something is wrong with the
input and the suggestion to look at "Edit source" seems the right way to go.

If you can not get it work but are able to reproduce a basic example of the
problem, you can mail that to me and I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

Yves
 
G

grammatim

So _that's_ why the title keeps showing up (incorrectly) in Chicago
citations! They did MLA first and based Chicago on it without taking
care of the differences. In Chicago style, multiple works by the same
author show only author and date, and if there's more than one work
from the same year, a, b, ... are appended to the date.

It also -- randomly, it appears -- sometimes does and sometimes
doesn't replace a repeated author's name with lines (albeit not the
correct 3 em dashes) in the bibliography.

But that doesn't matter, since it doesn't know that a Chicago author-
date bibliography is supposed to be ordered by author, then date --
not have the date at the very end of the entry. So I've been
generating my bibliographies in APA style (to get the dates after the
names), then converting to plain text, then sorting the list (since it
comes out alphabetized by title), then putting in the 3-em dashes,
then restoring the authors' first names.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top