Using letters after the year to distinguish between same author and same year citations

Hi,

I am using APA 7th edition and thought with this style, references with same author and year would be assigned like this with letters attached to the year: (Author et al. 2020a, Author et al. 2020b). In my case, the second author is used instead, like (Author1, Author 2 et al. 2020; Author1, other Author2 et al. 2020).

How can I change it to letters? Or am I wrong and this is the right result for this citation style? What similar style could i use instead?

Thank you!
  • What you're seeing is correct APA style -- APA generally wants different first authors (via initials) and different author groups (by adding additional authors as in your case) distinguished and not grouped with 2020a,b, c etc.

    There are some author-date styles that only use a,b,c to disambiguate, but if you want to/have to use APA, I'd stick with the correct implementation you're currently getting.
  • Ok thank you! I don‘t necessarily want to use APA, can you recommend me a similar style but with letters attached to the years for same author, same year references?
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