To preface this, I’m a lawyer who is finishing up my MLIS degree to be a law librarian. I do a lot of work with legal documents, from cases to statutes to code to constitutions, as well as other Government Publications/Documents, particularly United States documents, but occasionally what would be considered foreign law (i.e. not American). I am continuously frustrated when trying to cite those materials in Paperpile, specifically:
How do others cite to the U.S. Constitution generally, as in, not a specific version? As of right now, if I was citing to a historical printing/version of the Constitution, I would probably enter it as a book and be on my way. However, for most legal writing, if you’re not citing to a specific version, the rule is just to cite it generally, Art. Sec. Cl., as appropriate. Paperpile doesn’t seem to give me a way to do this, at least not that I can see.
And I get it, most likely nobody on the Paperpile team is trained in legal citations (heck, many lawyers struggle with it daily, and particularly law students, which will be my patron base). So I think part of the issue is just that there is no proper vehicle to do so.
That said, has anybody else met this problem, and how have you solved it? I know right now I’m also fighting with Paperpile trying to turn the ~author “Government Printing Office” into Office, GP.