Help making correction -APA Style - intext citation initials

Nestorlld

Hello All. I just found what I believe to be an error on the APA Style in-text citation. It seems that when there are more than one author in the manuscript references with the same surname, zotero is adding the first initial to the in-text citations regardless of whether said author is or is not the primary author. APA 5th edition style section 3.98 page 211 states that this should only be done when there are two PRIMARY authors with the same surname.

For example. If there are two citations, one by Davis, L 2006. and another by Davis, G. 2008 then the intext citation should correctly include the initial, such as (L. Davis, 2000) and (G. Davis, 2008). However, if Davis G is not the primary author, then the intext citation should not include the initial. Such as (Davis, 2006) and (Roberts & Davis, 2008). Currently Zotero is writing the intext citation in such cases as (G. Davis, 2006) and (Roberts & G. Davis, 2008).

Could someone help me make this change in my copy of the CSL file, and also change the original.

If for some reason I'm mistaken also please let me know. Thank you. Nestor.

bdarcus

Grumble, grumble ... another one of these stupid rules that makes things really hard for programmers.

There's no way to accommodate this in CSL ATM. I'll raise it with the xbib group to see if we can figure out a reasonable solution.

Nestorlld

Thank you. Let us know when/if this is fixed. Nestor

fbennett

I would like to confirm Nestor's example with someone who has access to the APA style guide. Is it correct that this style requires that the author initial be added where there are two authors with the same surname, even if the year of publication or coauthors differ?

If so, this is going to take some more time to address. The disambiguation machinery in the new (as yet unreleased) CSL processor goes to great lengths to perform precise and minimal disambiguation based on the form of the in-text cite. Where there is no ambiguity, the names will not be touched, so in all of the examples given in Nestor's post, the new processor would render "Davis", rather than Davis plus an initial.

If the answer to the question in the first paragraph above is a definite and mandatory "Yes", then we're not really talking about disambiguation at all, but a special type of context-sensitive names formatting. That's not impossible to handle, but it's a whole separate ball of wax, and we would need to be very certain that it is required before going forward with changes to handle it. Further info from folks who rely on this style greatly appreciated.

komrade

Section 3.98 of the 5th Edition states:

If a reference list includes publications by two or more primary authors with the same surname, include the first authors initials in all text citations, even if the year of publication differs. Initials help the reader to avoid confusion within the text and to locate the entry in the list of references.

R. D. Luce (1959) and P. A. Luce (1986) also found

J. M. Goldberg and Neff (1961) and M. E. Goldberg and Wurtz (1972) studied

------

Unfortunately the two examples they give are both suppress-author style, but judging from the rest of the chapter, they do confirm what Nestor is saying. This now adds a third major style of disambiguation to the possible ones:

1. by cite
2. by surname (all authors)
3. by surname (primary author only)

The style guide does not say what to do when the initials are the same - i.e. the Minnie Mouse and Mickey Mouse examples.

fbennett

komrade,

Great, and that's one confirmed. Two (and maybe more?) to go! I'll stick a link back to your post from the thread where I'm trying to get all this stuff under one roof.