Writing annotated bibliographies with R Markdown

bibliographies
Rstats
Trying out ways to write annotated bibliographies in R Markdown.
Author

Matt Crump

Published

June 28, 2022

Last knit: 2023-08-04

I often create messy annotated bibliographies for sets of readings. This will be a quick post for me to work through my writing and R Markdown process for creating annotated bibs. I have a feeling that I could make the process easier for myself. But, I need to kick some tires first.

Zotero Copy/Paste Method

This is the method that I am starting with, and it could be the one I end with too.

  1. Use zotero for reference management.
  • Make a folder for my readings
  • Add citation entries to zotero for each reading

  1. Copy/paste references out of Zotero into R markdown.

  2. Write an annotation underneath the citation and move on.

I usually separate citations with a horizontal line. The look and feel is:

Future proofing Assessment in Business Education: Lessons From COVID-19. (2021). Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 21(4). https://doi.org/10.33423/jhetp.v21i4.4206

Short blurb, and random notes about the above paper/book.

Jenkins, B. D., Golding, J. M., Le Grand, A. M., Levi, M. M., & Pals, A. M. (2022). When Opportunity Knocks: College Students’ Cheating Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic. Teaching of Psychology, 009862832110590. https://doi.org/10.1177/00986283211059067

Short blurb, and random notes about the above paper/book.

Krienert, J. L., Walsh, J. A., & Cannon, K. D. (2021). Changes in the tradecraft of cheating: Technological advances in academic dishonesty. College Teaching, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2021.1940813

Short blurb, and random notes about the above paper/book.

Pros/Cons

Pros: It’s fast to copy/paste citations out of Zotero.

Cons: The citations are not formatted by csl, they could be made more pretty looking. No reference list generated. No header added to table of contents.

Cite in text method

  1. export .bib file from Zotero
  2. cite individual papers and write annotation

Looks like:

Baird Jr (1980)

Some comments about the paper

Bowers (1964)

Some comments about the paper

Drake (1941)

Some comments about the paper

Pros/Cons

Also fast, and generates a reference list. However, the full citation is not printed in the main text.

What I want?

  1. Fast and easy
  2. Title listed in TOC
  3. Full-citation listed in main text
  4. Reference list printed at end

Maybe something that looks like this.

When Opportunity Knocks: College Students’ Cheating Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Jenkins, B. D., Golding, J. M., Le Grand, A. M., Levi, M. M., & Pals, A. M. (2022). When Opportunity Knocks: College Students’ Cheating Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic. Teaching of Psychology, 009862832110590. https://doi.org/10.1177/00986283211059067

Jenkins et al. (2022) provide both a historical summary of the cheating literature, and present new data about cheating behavior during COVID-19.

Ghost-Students and the New Wave of Online Cheating for Community College Students

Hollis, L. P. (2018). Ghost-students and the new wave of online cheating for community college students. New Directions for Community Colleges, 2018(183), 25–34. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.20314

Hollis (2018) discuss contract-cheating and “ghost-students” who are hired to complete coursework.

Pros/Cons

This is getting closer to something I would use. It’s not too clunky. Perhaps a function to further automate the process.

bib2annotate <- function(cite_key,
                   bib_file,
                   csl_file = "apa.csl",
                   header_level="###"){

  import_bib <- RefManageR::ReadBib(bib_file)
  get_title <- import_bib[[cite_key]]$title
  get_title <- stringr::str_remove_all(get_title,"[{}]")
  single_citation <- RefManageR::toBiblatex(import_bib[[cite_key]])
  
  cat(c(header_level, " ", get_title, "\n\n"))
  cat(c("::: {.apa}","\n"))
  stevemisc::print_refs(paste(single_citation,collapse=""),csl=csl_file)
  cat(c(":::","\n\n"))
  cat(c("Citation key for ","@",cite_key,": ",cite_key), sep="")

}
bib2annotate("ivesYourStudentsAre2020","AcademicIntegrity.bib")

Your Students Are Cheating More than You Think They Are. Why?.

Ives, B. (2020). Your Students Are Cheating More than You Think They Are. Why?. Educational Research: Theory and Practice, 31(1), 46–53.

Citation key for Ives (2020): ivesYourStudentsAre2020

This will work well enough for now (note to self to add bib2annotate to crumplab functions.)

References

Baird Jr, John S. 1980. “Current Trends in College Cheating.” Psychology in the Schools 17 (4): 515–22. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6807(198010)17:4<515::AID-PITS2310170417>3.0.CO;2-3.
Bowers, William J. 1964. Student Dishonesty and Its Control in College. Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University.
Drake, Charles A. 1941. “Why Students Cheat.” The Journal of Higher Education 12 (8): 418–20. https://doi.org/10.2307/1976003.
Hollis, Leah P. 2018. “Ghost-Students and the New Wave of Online Cheating for Community College Students.” New Directions for Community Colleges 2018 (183): 25–34. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.20314.
Ives, Bob. 2020. “Your Students Are Cheating More Than You Think They Are. Why?.” Educational Research: Theory and Practice 31 (1): 46–53.
Jenkins, Baylee D., Jonathan M. Golding, Alexis M. Le Grand, Mary M. Levi, and Andrea M. Pals. 2022. “When Opportunity Knocks: College Students’ Cheating Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Teaching of Psychology, February, 009862832110590. https://doi.org/10.1177/00986283211059067.