I don’t think I am alone on this one so I’ll just shout it out: when inserting citation references in OpenOffice Writer with APA format, Zotero can generate inconsistent insertions. As we know, APA references in the text uses last names of the authors only. For some reason, Zotero is inserting some first and middle name initials. Hmm…
Get Smart with APA, Zotero!!
29
Jul
tjowens
July 30, 2009 at 05:23
There are two possibilities. First check to see if names are in the correct fields inside Zotero, second, if you are using multiple works by the same author be sure that the authors name is exactly the same on each item. If you have one item with just a first initial and another with a full name there is no way for Zotero to know that those two names are the same person, so it defaults to adding additional information for disambiguation.
polochen
August 1, 2009 at 13:54
Hi tjowens,
Thanks much for the comments. (You are the first one ever commented on this blog. ^^)
Still, Zotero should be smart enough to list only last names because a reference entry is a direct (and one-to-one or multiple-to-one) link to the database connected through the Firefox plug-in. In case of multiple entries, only when the last names are exactly the same then first and middle initials should be used. In this current case, Zotero is adding initials when only the first authors of two multiple author entries have same last name. I guess the Zotero programmers are not familiar with the APA style, maybe.
Sebastian
September 9, 2009 at 13:00
yes, you are right for multiple author citations -
Zotero just recognizes that the same last name is already used in a citation. It can’t tell the difference between multi-author and single-author citations for that purpose.
So if you have
(J. Smith 2008) and (Smith and Meyer 2007), Zotero instead writes (R. Smith and Meyer 2007).
This is well known among Zotero developers but cannot currently be accommodated by the software.
This will be addressed in future issues though. Doing this – we call it disambiguation – right is actually very difficult and a lot of work is going into being able to deal with the different types of disambiguation required by different styles.
LeRoy Hill
June 14, 2010 at 21:02
One easy fix is to make the changes in the ‘show editor’.
polochen
September 12, 2009 at 14:05
Hi Sebastian,
Thank you for the great information. I use Zotero and would love to see it gets better. To my knowledge, the citation styles (at least APA) have clear rules in most situations and shouldn’t be so hard to implement a clear reference insertion.
Good post.
December 17, 2009 at 00:58
i do not agree
have been waiting on opening up my comments section till I got enough visitors coming to my
December 17, 2009 at 01:08
linda o k
January 23, 2010 at 16:59
I am using zotero for a chapter I am having published, they requested apa style, and my one problem is that apa require using the & symbol for more than two authors and zotero uses, and, its a problem..
Jesayah
October 4, 2010 at 10:30
I have a problem with Zotero references. When I have cited papers, the reference list does not comes in alphabetical order. Instead, the paper which was cited first in the manuscript will show first in the reference list, and so on……. What can I do?
Andrea
October 23, 2011 at 08:39
Does anyone know a solution for the following problem:
If I insert a citation of several autors with two having the same surname in the text, zotero cites the initial. For example: A paper by Currie, A,, Smith, C., & Currie, K. (2010) appearas as (A. Currie et al., 2010). The same mistake occurs with similar surnames in general in my text.