APA in-text (author, year) should be Author (year)

spicedreams

Sorry to start a new thread but I can't find anything like this in the existing...

I need to use APA and as I read it and as others have pointed out to me, the expected way to referring within the text is to use Author (year) format- and that seems to be what other users on the forum get.

I get references like (Author, year) instead.

I use WinXP, FireFox 3.6, Zotero v2.0, OpenOffice 3.1 and Zotero OpenOffice Integration 3.0. My apa.csl says <updated>2009-09-28T20:22:16+00:00</updated>. I store my documents in OpenOffice .odt format then save as word.doc when I need to share with my supervisor etc, but always go back to the .odt to edit. Under Document Preferences from the Zotero toolbar in OpenOffice I have American Psychological Association 6th Edition set as my Citation style, and I format using Reference Marks.

It's probably a user setting somewhere I haven't found. Can anyone point me to it, please?

ajlyon

You'll want to enter the author name manually, then check "Suppress author" in the citation entry dialogue in OpenOffice (or Word) when you insert the date part.

spicedreams

Thanks for the suggestion. It's really that hard?

spicedreams

It just seems to defy logic that in order to get valid APA format I have to override Zotero's standard referencing and put author names in by hand. Isn't doing this correctly the reason to use Zotero? Others seem not to have this problem.

Surely there's another solution to this that doesn't involve me re-inserting every reference in my research paper and typing in the author names!

Thanks
Graham

ajlyon

Well, the reason for this is that the author name in this and many Author-Date styles is often integrated into the grammar of the sentence, so it isn't quite as simple as replacing (Author, Year) with Author (Year)-- it can be something more complex, like: "Cummings et al.’s (2002) results are very interesting". Zotero can't handle this... I believe there has been discussion of a "Suppress date" checkbox to complement the "Suppress author" option, but this hasn't happened, in part because it would be problematic for writers who switch from an Author-Date to Note citation style.

I should also note that (Author, Date) is valid APA style. Only when the author name is included in the paper's prose do you need Author (Date).

If you are convinced that you would rather have Author (Year) in general, you can edit the APA style accordingly-- perhaps adamsmith or another CSL specialist can tell you exactly what to change.

adamsmith

just to highlight that (Author, Date) is valid APA, look here:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/03/
it's of course easy to adjust the style for your needs by changing
<sort>
<key macro="author"/>
<key macro="issued-year"/>
</sort>
<layout prefix="(" suffix=")" delimiter="; ">
<group delimiter=", ">
<text macro="author-short"/>
<text macro="issued-year"/>
<text macro="citation-locator"/>
</group>
</layout>
</citation>

to

<sort>
<key macro="author"/>
<key macro="issued-year"/>
</sort>
<layout>
<text macro="author-short"/>
<group delimiter=", " prefix="(" suffix=")">
<text macro="issued-year"/>
<text macro="citation-locator"/>
</group>
</layout>
</citation>

http://www.zotero.org/support/csl_simple_edits
You also have to change the and="symbol" in the author-short macro to and="text".

I personally think that's a terrible idea for a whole bunch of reasons (among them what ajlyon says, the fact that this will make it impossible to convert to a footnoted style like Chicago, the fact that APA requires and ampersand in citations, but a text "and" in the text etc.), but if that's what you want it's a two minute change.

spicedreams

Thanks guys, you have all been most helpful and given me a better understanding of this. It looks like I need to change the way I write to match Zotero's default in-text style, because the alternatives are worse...

PhilippMelanchton

I would like to take up the discussion on this again, as I now face similar problems. If it has been resolved, I would be very thankful for a short note as to how.
The problem is, that (Author, Year) is NOT a valid in-text citation considering APA Style, 6th edtition. At least, if a direct reference to the work of the author(s) is included in the text, it is not.
You may kindly verify that by checking the publicly available paper on http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699930903132496.
Compare, e.g., "Analogous distinctions highlighting the source of the affective feeling have recently been proposed in other fields (Laney, Heuer, & Reisberg, 2003; Pham, 2007)." where no direct reference to the paper of the authors is made and thus (Author, Year) is valid to "Seminal research by Butler and Mathews (1983, 1987) used self-report methodology, and demonstrated clear differences in interpretation between anxious and non-anxious individuals." where direct reference to the work of the authors is made and thus it is mandatory to cite in the Author (Year) style.
My suggestion (or rather question if there is already existing such a CSL) is to split up APA citation in zotero to in-text direct reference and in-text indirect reference.
I am aware that this does not solve the genitive problem noted above, but adding a "'s" at some points is infinitely easier than changing nearly every citation from (Author, Year) to Author (Year).
Thank you for your patience in reading all of this, I hope someone can point to a solution of this, as time for my thesis is running out and I would be very happy if I did not have to change the style myself completely.

fbennett

As ajlyon indicates above, the normal way to handle the case you describe is to type the author into the text, an then tick the "Suppress author" box when adding the citation. This does require that you type the author into the text by hand, but apart from that it is a simple solution and it works.

(Edit: and to be clear, no changes to the style file are required; ticking the "Suppress author" box is all you need to do.)