Quote from Donna Cox Baker on January 1, 2020, 6:44 pm

Hi, James. I have not researched in Scotlands People, but hopefully, some of our other forum members have. Ann Gilchrest, I recall you mentioning research in Scotland. Do you have any counsel?

Quote from Ann C Gilchrest on January 2, 2020, 5:18 am

Hi James and Donna,

Unfortunately, all my research in Scotland is prior to any census records. But I have used some of the very early parish registers. I haven't used Scotland's People in several years so I am not familiar with how they are showing information these days. 

That being said. I would write/log my citations in Zotero the same way I do for just about everything. I don't use Zotero to generate a citation. Personally, it is much quicker and easier for me to write out my citations by hand using EE as my guide book. I will then copy and paste the written citation into a Zotero note for the entry.

The first image below shows what I have for the 1901 Census for Ireland for the main entry. The second image shows the expanded note for Patrick Gillen. This note was created when I clicked on the Zotero Connector while on the page. Notice at the top of the note is my main title followed by a link to the entry. In the actual note part, I have written out my citation and a transcription of the entry.

In essence, I use Zotero as a massive card catalogue and finding aid. I will add transcriptions, translations, and analysis into Zotero. Another way to look at it is Zotero is my research assistant it is not a citation generator for me. 

I hope this helps,

Ann

Quote from James Hood on January 2, 2020, 5:23 pm

Thanks Ann, and this is helpful. I too am minded not to use Zotero as a citation generator for vital records. It's looking great for books, articles etc and I will use it to generate citations for those henceforth.

Quote from Ann C Gilchrest on January 2, 2020, 7:30 pm

Hi James, 

I agree with you that it works great for certain records particularly books. For the most part, my citations are in my genealogy software. I use a free-form template in the software. My citations are handwritten and then copied and pasted there as well. I think everyone is using Zotero a little differently and that is precisely what makes it such a good application.

I have done some experimenting with generating citations in Zotero but I didn't want to spend the time to figure out where to put all the elements. I have found that for the most part when I use the connector I get almost all the information I need to write a citation EE style. Zotero just doesn't "spit" it out that way.

Ann

Quote from Donna Cox Baker on January 2, 2020, 9:50 pm

Great counsel, as always, Ann. Having come up as a historian, I take the approach of using CMOS style, with extra content (rather than format) guided by EE. I tuck the extra information into places that seem most appropriate in the CMOS fields, or I put "[see Extra]" in a CMOS field that will be picked up by a footnote, then put the additional information in Zotero's Extra field. That way, when I generate footnotes using the Word add-on, I will be alerted that I need to go back for more.

I've stopped worrying about whether it looks like EE style--only that it captures the information EE suggests. And I put a note to myself in "Extra" that tells me where to find the EE material that guided me. If the time comes that I'm required to publish with a strict EE style mandate, I'll rework the necessary citations. 

Quote from Ann C Gilchrest on January 2, 2020, 10:18 pm

Donna, 

You and I have come to the same conclusions. There was a time in my life when I would have been obsessed with making the citations come out in EE style. Not anymore as long as I have the information I am a happy little camper!