BibTeX and APA style with more flexibility

#1

Hi, I’m using TW as a customized mini CMS for writing research proposals (and it has been pretty great, as usual). But I have been unable to get the proper citation when using the APA style. Something similar has been reported previously and there are some old discussions, but still the solution is not applied yet in RefNotes.

I would expect that for the following entry:

@misc{leinonen-software-2008,
	title = {Software as Hypothesis: Research-Based Design Methodology},
	shorttitle = {leinonen-2008},
	url = {http://www.slideshare.net/teemul/software-as-hypothesis-researchbased-design-methodology-presentation},
	urldate = {2015-07-29},
	author = {Leinonen, Teemu},
	year = {2008},
}

after imported in TW and referenced with As said by <<ref leinonen_software_2008>> you should get something rendered in APA like: As said by Leinonen, T (2008) and instead you get As said by Leinonen, Teemu (2008).

Given that the <<refAPA>> macro referenced in the previous discussion link doesn’t work and on the discussions on Refnote development there is indications of support for different styles (but they’re not showcased in the tutorial), I wonder if there is something I’m missed regarding APA support or some new developments that already support it. For now I will just chop the given name to keep the intended style consistent, but I would like to teach TW to my fellow researchers, so despite not being an urgent question, I think is important to put citations styles support again into the radar.

On a related matter, as a previous user of Pandoc I miss the citation syntax that let you put also page information and make it appear on your text with more flexibility:

A minus sign (-) before the @ will suppress mention of the author in the citation. This can be useful when the author is already mentioned in the text:

Smith says blah [-@smith04].

You can also write an author-in-text citation, by omitting the square brackets:

@smith04 says blah.

@smith04 [p. 33] says blah.

This will cause the author’s name to be rendered, followed by the bibliographical details. Use this form when you want to make the citation the subject of a sentence.

So, I wonder if would be possible to write something like As Leinonen says (<<ref- leinonen-software-2008>>, p31) and to get rendered something As Leinonen says (2008, p31) and 2008 would be a link to the complete preview tooltip, pointing to the same place where <<ref- leinonen-software-2008>> does.

Thanks,

#2

Hi @Offray
I have forgotten what we did lately on Refnotes, but I highly welcome PRs to improve Refnotes.
If you are not in a rush, I will have look next weekend.

I think with @Odin and @Mark_S we added APA7 style.

In general, it would be great to let users simply add their own styles, like EndNote or Mendeley.

Ticket: [Feature Request] BibTeX and APA style with more flexibility · Issue #24 · kookma/TW-Refnotes · GitHub

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#3

Thanks @Mohammad.

If APA7 style was already added, there is no documentation in the tutorial about how to use it and the only reference I could search was <<refAPA>>, which is not working. How can I use the implemented feature already implemented with @Odin and @Mark_S?

I don’t think I’m able to propose PR yet, as I’m unfamiliar with the plugin code (or barely with JavaScript in case it is needed for something. I will look at the ticket you point to see if I help to close it, maybe with test or other non-code related work.

#4

csl style might be useful to apply user defined styles.

Filter Question: APA Style Title Case Capitalization
#5

The code is pure wikitext, except a customized regexp macro.

Note the default citation style is APA, so <<ref creates an APA style citation! That is why there is no dedicated tutorial for it.

Note that when you export bibliography data into bib format from other software, there is no standard format and every software creates its own bib format, so when using Refnotes you should check your bib tiddlers.

In Refnotes we did not implement whole supports for citation styles, we only tried to have a simple and semantic form of citation and bibliography! The reason is Refnotes is a simple wikitext plugin and implementing and maintaining different citation styles are difficult! It will need JavaScript.

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#6

Ummm… so the issue is with the expectations of <<ref and APA citations, at least as the default is practiced here (and reported in several discussions). For example this reference tiddler should produce Leinonen, T (2008) when cited with <<ref leinonen-software-2008>> (family name, first letter of the given name) and instead in produces `Leinonen, Teemu (2008) (full family name, full given name).

Also something that allows you to write something like As Leinonen says (<<ref- leinonen-software-2008>>, p31) and get As Leinonen says (2008, p31), and let add citations in a more flexible way could be an improvement, similar to Pandoc, as said above.

So, the request/inquiry is:

  1. How could APA citation style be customized to use the first letter of the given name instead of the full name and
  2. How could citations be flexibilized to allow more free form regarding the way author, pages and other data are used inside text while keeping the citations (the <<ref- proposed).
#7

Isn’t this mainly about variable application of CSS?

Certainly there are differences between APA and CHICAGO (Turabian), to mention only two of the many.

A query
TT

#8

@Mohammad I’m reluctant to get technical on your arse :-).

FYI I always thought attempts to style citation universally in TW would fail.
Mainly because there are too many variant citation styles to cope with???

TBH, I thought you did very well in your version.

I’d guess APA and CHICAGO deserve special places?

Just a comment
TT

#9

I don’t know if this would be about the application or maybe the amount of parameters that the macro has: sometimes you want the usual citation, sometimes you want to keep the year, but add the page and say the author name in a different way, as showed in the above referred Pandoc inspired example. In my previous usage of Pandoc I found that using @author-year says... or Cucicanqui applies (-@author-year; p 31) ... are useful common ways to use citation, as showcased by the introduction of both syntaxes.

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#10

See macros for APA: those prefixed with $:/plugins/kookma/refnotes/macros/apa

See $:/plugins/kookma/refnotes/macros/apa/ref

I will try to push an update to add some new features.

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#11

See Refnotes Plugin: New update 1.8.0 - Plugins - Talk TW (tiddlywiki.org)

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