et al. settings

nan-tze

Hi,

This is probably a very easy thing to do but I'm new to zotero and kinda stuck- can anybody help??

I'm using Harvard ref format 1, and it seems like it's set to abbreviate to firstauthor et al. only at 4+ authors. Listing 3 authors individually in citations is not in my supervisor's special definition of correct referencing.

Is there a way of changing the settings so that instead of citing (Davidson, Trumbore & Amundsen, 2000) it cites (Davidson et al. 2000) ?

While we're here, is there an easy way of turning off first names and initials, and capitals, in in-text citations?

thanks, if anyone can help....

bdarcus

There's no way to change the settings without creating a new style, so ask your supervisor to tell you which style to use from this list. If they hover over the styles, they'll see a preview.

kat

I would also like to request a style that puts "et al." for anything over 2 authors. Wildlife (esp. ornithology) ecology, environmental biology, conservation journals use that style. I always edit the citation when I insert it but it often gets refreshed multiple times before I finish a document (I try very, very hard never, never never to click the refresh icon so I think it gets refreshed every time I add new citations?).

If you want journals:
The Auk, Ecology, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (B) are three off the top of my head. Many others in the field are similar citation style.

adamsmith

I`ve written a brief outline of how to do change the et al. settings for any citation style (by creating a new one, which - as bdarcus points out will definitely be necessary) here
No guarantees, but you can't do any harm by trying this out, so go ahead.

Also, note that Zotero can now use Endnote citation styles, so you have an almost unlimited choice of styles.