APA in-text citation - Author initials

Hello,

I am trying to figure out how to get correct APA-style in-text citations. No matter how I enter the author names, initials keep appearing in the in-text citations, even though this is against APA style. I just finished going through and entering in author names and initials by hand to make sure they all matched (I read some previous posts about making sure the same authors are entered in the same exact way), and I am still getting initials in the in-text citations. Can you please help with this?
  • The style does this correctly - it only adds initials when multiple authors have the same last name.
    First thing to check would be to insert just the problematic citation in an empty document using APA style - do you get initials there, too?
  • Yes, I do. I have just started developing my Zotero references, and currently do not have any authors with the same last name - I do have a few papers by the same author, but I made sure to enter them exactly the same every time.
  • I need you to confirm that you've run through exactly what I ask to prevent us running in circles while troubleshooting.

    I'm not clear from your answer: Have you tried this in an otherwise empty document with just one citation?
  • Yes. I just opened a completely new word document, clicked on the Zotero insert citation tab, and inserted a citation. This is what appeared:

    (Awh, E., Vogel, E. K., & Oh, S. H., 2006)

    If it helps, there are no other authors with these last names in my database.

    I made sure that I had American Psychological Association chosen in document preferences.

    Thanks for your continued help!
  • This looks like you have the authors entered incorrectly in your database.
    Import the article from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452205008985 and look at how the authors are entered: Last names and initials are in two separate fields in Zotero: If you click on "Awh" you'll see just the last name in the now editable field. Hit tab and now you have just "E." - the initial.
  • There it is, thanks!

    So, to get the correct citation, last names and initials have to be separated into two different fields. Is there ever a time where you would want to use just one field?
  • edited January 14, 2014
    Single field is pretty much only for corporate authors - think "National Science Foundation" - in those cases, make sure you also click on the white rectangle behind the name to switch to single field mode.

    edit: by the way - clicking the white rectangle twice may also get those names you have entered correctly into your database right - but not sure, it might also switch lastname and initials. Worth trying out, though.
  • Thanks so much, I really appreciate your help! I'm excited to get started with Zotero, it seems so great!
  • Is it possible to not show the initials while using APA?
  • Yes, you can set form="short" within the line starting with <name in the macro="author". (that'd be line 83 in APA)
    General guide: https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step
  • or do you mean in-text? In which case you want to change disambiguate-add-givenname to false
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