Choral annotations for Zotero is a technology intended to render out the process of reading and annotating as a screenplay where the author(s), or any other metadata field, is — typographicaly in dialog with the annotator(s).
It is a set of short html scripts at its core and depends on Zotero — in particular its templating features and CSV style editor.
Templates have been edited from the default template version in Zotero (version 6 or above). See default templates on Zotero documentation pages.
CSL styles proposed in this repo have been edited with the visual editor from CitationStyle.org.
The APA7th style has been choosen because it is popular and because it was the first style proposed for editing. APA7th credits @ Brenton M. Wiernik ([email protected]) Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
APA7 has only been modified on the inline citation side. For all styles, parentheses have been stripped out. Depending on the variations, the delimiter could have changed from ","or ";" to "and" or "&", and the date or the locator could have been deleted. All choral styles have been checked using the CSL Style and Validator.
CSL goes for Citation Style Language. See more about it from the CSL project homepage and more about current challenges with reference managers and metadata here.
This style keeps the locator of the citation i.e. the page(s) on the inline citation (p.1 or pp.1-2 for example). all the other style have dropped this information. For technical reason, a "P" (in uppercase) is used for both singular and plural pages (both for p.1 and pp.1-2.
The intention was to make the author reference as it was a forum username or machine-like nickname like C3-PO in Star Wars saga (I know it's an 'o' not a zero but I am not intending to be exact).This echoing Roland Barthes when he wrote that "the death of the author is the birth of the reader" (1984). With such style, every citation is the birth a new author that the...annotator give by highlighting a fragment of the text and build his own meaning with its own context, position, and standpoint.
Reference
Barthes R. (1984). « La mort de l’auteur », in Le Bruissement de la langue, Paris, Le Seuil.
A good practice for template editing is to save your every template you already might have edited in a text document, and save it in a proper location, before doing anything. Default templates scripts are accessible on the note template page from Zotero documentation. Not the ones you have edited.
Undesired results, unsuccessful procedures or other misuses scenarios should not "break anything" in your Zotero database. Your previous annotations, exported or not yet exported, will not change nor be affected. Your future annotations will be affected at the only moment of exporting highlights or standalone notes. Template editing is reversible so there is no real reason to be worried about.
CSL Styles have been checked using the CSL Style and Validator following the procedure recommended in Zotero documentation. When installed, the title given to the csl style will mark it apart from the other APA7 you might already have installed. So installing styles from this repo should not overwrite other ones in your style library. See CSL specifications here and a step-by-step guide from Zotero documentation here.
- The safe use described above are the result of my own opinion and, with all that has been said in the space of this repo, the use of the templates remains at your own risk.
- This is my first public repository and my first public release. If you see any issue with something please send me a kind word and explain to me what is the situation. You can open an issue in this repo or write a message in Zotero forum mentioning "choral template" or "choral annotations" @alflamingo. Betamigo98 and alflamingo are two aliases I use, I could have merge it but as it has consequences (minor) on previous work and mentioning I am sticking to both of it.
- If you use the templates in this repo for choral annotating or other use, and if you feel like it make sense for you, please consider using the recommended citation in the CITATION.ff file. There is an APA version on the right-hand side of the repository mainpage, and Zotero connector will recognize the item properly. And if you wish, tell me how you found it usefull or not.
- A Public Library is linked to this repo. You will find all the bibliographic references made in this repo, along with with some extended bibliography and various ressources. There is also a dedicated collection for credits and the practice of crediting. See Choral Annotation in Zotero Groups.
- "Choral" has been chosen from other words such as polyphonia, dramatic, and dialogic. Decision had been made partly due to personal preferences and partly because it can be used to discuss concepts while not being a concept itself (or being more colorful and more distant to conceptual connotation, to my view read more about this. The french traduction "annotations chorales" and the spanish one "anotaciones corales" that has been thought of also appear as convenient. Last, it looks nice if you use all the highlight colors.
- I wrote this repo as an side project on my own and declare that I do not have any conflicting interests with any specific organization mentionned or linked to this repository. Part of all this comes from procrastrinating my master's thesis in sociology. The rest is grounded in some years of annotating practices and academia writing. I started to use Zotero around 2021 when the reader was in betatesting.
- Choral annotations are free to use and not for sale.
- Choral annotations are not a plugin. All works from Zotero in-built!