how to do APA short quotations

kalevhunt
Hi all,

Total newbie here so I apologise if this is a frequently-answered question. I use APA and I'm wondering how to use Zotero to do this particular type of in-text citation: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/

Namely:
According to Jones (1998), "Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (p. 199).
I can get the Jones (1998) bit by suppressing the author but should I be manually adding the "(p. 199)" part given that I can't seem to suppress the date and end up with:
According to Jones (1998), "Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (1998, p. 199).
Any advice would be appreciated.
  • fbennett
    Entering the trailing parens and page number into the text by hand would be the way to go with that one. Zotero doesn't see the quotation, so it will just treat a trailing reference as a further citation, as you're finding.
  • kalevhunt
    Thanks for your reply.

    Doesn't really help if I then want to switch MLA citation style, where the page number would just be "(199)" because now I've "hard-coded" (p. 199) into the text of my paper. *sigh*
  • fbennett
    True. These insertions that mix references with the main text are tricky to handle without making both the user interface and the underlying software excessively complicated. Unless the overall task can actually be simplified by Zotero's intervention, development isn't likely to move in that direction.

    (For the APA->MLA example case, it looks like the conversion could be done pretty easily in the word processor with find-and-replace.)
  • khairul23
    On a related matter based on kalevhunt's example, how do you actually insert Jones (1998) into the text? I know how to insert it as (Jones, 1998). Or do you manually delete the opening bracket and the comma, and type in a bracket before 1998?

    Thanks.
  • adamsmith
    use th esuppress author checkbox in the plugin.
    Write out Jones in your word processor. Zotero inserts (1998).

    Don't manually delete stuff - it just creates a mess - either you manage to break the citations link to Zotero or Zotero will change it back the next time you update.
  • khairul23
    "Don't manually delete stuff - it just creates a mess - either you manage to break the citations link to Zotero or Zotero will change it back the next time you update."

    Yep, have been furious with that many times. Did what you suggested and sweet now.
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