Questions about managing different langauges

After reading some of the many posts on this topic, I have some basic questions answered, but I’m still unclear about what to do regarding others.  So here goes!

I have references in Chinese, Japanese, and English.  I use Chicago for the English style, but the Chinese and Japanese references must be in their own style with their own Asian punctuation.  Up to know, I’ve been keeping different libraries for different languages, and then outputing the bibliographies seperately.  But I’d like to be able to merge them into one, as other’s have suggested on these forums is a good idea.  What’s the best way to go about doing this?

I guess that’s my main question for now… I can’t yet articulate the others.

Thanks!

Single master library is always easier. I have several hundreds of Japanese references in ~6000 total references. EN just works fine to view these references in Japanese. But when it comes to bibliography formatting, it is all dependent on the journal you are submitting. If it is a journal published by Japanese publishers or society, I always end up manual editing the Japanese references. So, editing output style to match all the demands is not worth spending time.

Myoshigi, it sounds like you do indeed have similar needs to mine.  Great!  But just to be sure I know what you mean… I am right that you output your bibliography in whatever style you typically use for English publications (Chicago, etc.) and then manually edit them all in the word processor?

I’ve had fairly good luck editing the style templates (edit>open styles>open style manager).  I just opened Chicago 15th A, saved a copy as the name of a representative Chinese langauge journal, and then edited the templates in the style manager, which mostly invovles replacing punctuation, as well as Chinese eqivilants for terms like “et al.” and “paper presented at the.”  Once you do this, most of your work is done for good.

Of course, this would be difficult if you use Cite While You Write, I think, because then EndNote just makes your bibliography for you, right?  I do seperate independant bibliographies now, so I think I’ll just output the sources seperately, using the required styles for each, and then put them together in the word processor.

I wish there were a “tag output style to language”.

If the existing style can take care the author etc for both English and Chinese, that’ll be the best. I don’t edit whole bibliography manually in Word. I just edit part of them. Using single library is still trouble-less because the Word document calls the single library.

The problem of multi-language reference is, for example, the sort order of bibliography. If the author in the original references are spelled out in Japanese character, they are all come after Z. But, based on pronouciation, some of them need to be in the middle of alphabet. Japanese characters are read based on the rule called “Romanji”. In the case of appearance-order styles, it doesn’t matter. As long as the author punctuation, and journal names appear okay, then styles for English journal just work for Japanese journals as well.

As to the multi-language style, it is just impossible for developers to accomodate all of these different language rules into Endnote. You know, traditional Japanese are written from top down, right to left. For us, it’s simple thing, but for Word/Endnote CWYW, they need to change the code such that program reads the document that way. Then, arabic, korean, chinese, german, russian, have all own issues… but to me, alphabet-based languages are relatively all similar and configurable. Asian languages are totally different if you’ve learned some grammar and pronounciation.

Hi,

So,what about other languages that their writing style is writing from right to left? like Arabic and Hebrew ? Does the ENdNote program support them?

Abdulkhaliq

Short answer is, I don’t know about other languages. I guess very unlikely.

Endnote has been developed from the beginning, for publications in English, and particularly in scholary fields. Library can accomodate multiple languages, but bibliography style is difficult for them to support every possibility. It’s better to stay with English as much as possible.

As to Japanese in scholary publications (science, text books, journals, etc), even the written language is Japanese, we write and publish left to right, horizontal, like English. In such case, Endnote (English version) works just fine. For novel and letter writing in Japanese, traditional top-down, right-left style is used, and MS Word allows to write in such style (Text direction, Format menu). However, these writings don’t need bibliography, so Endnote supports such style or not really doesn’t matter.

I don’t know how scholary publication in arabic or hebrew is handled.

This is a typical Journal reference in the output style that is required for Chinese and Japanese sources in the Taiwanese Journal 新史學 (Xin Shi Xue, New Historiography):

謝桂華,〈尹灣漢墓簡牘和西漢地方行政制度〉,《文物》1(1997),頁42-48。

This is uniform for Chinese and Japanese references in Chinese language articles, and since the characters 〈, 〉, 《, 》, and others above are all Unicode (I think), I haven’t had any trouble putting them in as a new output style. The text is top to bottom, left to right, not vertical right to left (but this is not the case in many books published in Taiwan).

The only problem is that  English references typically use Chicago or APA, even when they appear in a Chinese language article.  So you have to have a mix of output styles.  

This is not the case with English language articles, since Chinese and Japanese sources are usually rendered in Chicago, APA, or some other more typical style already available in Endnote.

Bibliographies usually appear with Chinese and Japanese references first, then Western languages in a separate list, so I don’t have the problem myoshigi has with making them appear alphabetically using the Romanji transliteration.  

I guess for now, outputting two separate bibliographies works.  I output the western language references using Chicago, then output the Asian language one using my own Xin Shi Xue style.

@longmemory wrote:

 

I guess for now, outputting two separate bibliographies works.  I output the western language references using Chicago, then output the Asian language one using my own Xin Shi Xue style.

Using two different character pairs for the intext endnote citations and unlinking fields before the second step?  Clever work around.

@leanne wrote:

Using two different character pairs for the intext endnote citations and unlinking fields before the second step?  Clever work around.

Sounds clever… but I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about, Leanne!  Can you explain in more detail, for the more novice Endnote user?

Hi,

Single expert library is consistently simpler. I have a few manyJapanese  in out references. EN simply turns out great to see these references in Japanese. In any case, with regards to book index arranging, it is all subject to the diary you are submitting. On the off chance that it is a diary distributed by Japanese distributers or society, I generally end up manual altering the Japanese references. Thus, altering yield style to coordinate every one of the requests does not merit investing energy.