modified apa 6 style: same author same year a and b not being added

I'm using APA 6th ed style with one modification: a macro has been added to use the "archive_location" variable to add original date of publication to the citation (ex: Steiner 1883/1988) and reference (ex: Steiner, R. (1988). Goethean science. Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, (Original work published in 1883).

This is a workaround to get this information in the citations/references, but apparently the code breaks Zotero's ability to recognize references by the same author and year when information has been put into the archive_location field.

There are three sections of code added in the csl, indicated below:

<macro name="issued-year">
***********START ADDITION**********
<choose>
<if match="any" variable="archive_location">
<text variable="archive_location" suffix="/"/>
</if>
</choose></span>
***********END ADDITION**********
<choose>
<if variable="issued">
<date variable="issued">
<date-part name="year"/>
</date>
<text variable="year-suffix"/>
</if>
<else>
<text term="no date" form="short"/>
<text variable="year-suffix" prefix="-"/>
</else>
</choose>
</macro>

Then:

***********START ADDITION**********
<macro name="originaldate">
<choose>
<if match="any" variable="archive_location">
<text variable="archive_location" prefix="(Original work published in " suffix=")"/>
</if>
</choose>
</macro>
***********END ADDITION**********

and:

<bibliography hanging-indent="true" et-al-min="8" et-al-use-first="6" et-al-use-last="true" entry-spacing="0" line-spacing="2">
<sort>
<key macro="author"/>
<key macro="issued-sort" sort="ascending"/>
<key macro="title"/>
</sort>
<layout>
<group suffix=".">
<group delimiter=". ">
<text macro="author"/>
<text macro="issued"/>
<text macro="title" prefix=" "/>
<text macro="container"/>
</group>
<text macro="locators"/>
<group delimiter=", " prefix=". ">
<text macro="event"/>
<text macro="publisher"/>
***********START ADDITION**********
<text macro="originaldate"/>
***********END ADDITION**********
</group>
</group>
<text macro="access" prefix=" "/>
</layout>
</bibliography>


For any reference that has data entered into the archive_location field, Zotero is not appending a or b after the date when the reference is by the same author and during the same year. Here is an example from the bibliography:

Steiner, R. (1988). Goethean science. Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, (Original work published in 1883-97).

Steiner, R. (1988). The science of knowing: Outline of an epistemology implicit in the Goethean world view : with particular reference to Schiller (1st Mercury Press ed.). Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, (Original work published in 1924).


Can anyone help me figure out what I need to change/add to the .csl file to allow Zotero to correctly recognize that these entries count as being from the same author/year and thus appending the proper letter after the reference and citation?

Thank you!!!
P.S. This is for my dissertation so I'll be really grateful for any help...
  • <choose>
    <if match="any" variable="archive_location">
    <text variable="archive_location" suffix="/"/>
    </if>
    </choose></span>


    1. What does the span tag do there? Delete it.
    2. No need to test for the variable - you can reduce those 5 lines to
    <text variable="archive_location" suffix="/"/>

    Not sure if that will help, but would be a start.
    The other issues is that I'm not sure a/b _should_ be added in this case: 1883/1988a would, to me, indicated that there is another 1883/1988 citation by Steiner, which is not the case. APA itself appears to be silent on that.
  • Oops, the span tag isn't really in the .csl file, I was trying to spice up the post with some formatting and forgot to delete it.

    Reducing the five lines to one didn't change anything upon updating the style. I have figured out that the problem is with this phrase <text variable="archive_location" suffix="/"/> in the following:

    <macro name="issued-year">
    <choose>
    <if variable="issued">
    <text variable="archive_location" suffix="/"/>
    <date variable="issued">
    <date-part name="year"/>
    </date>
    <text variable="year-suffix"/>
    </if>
    <else>
    <text term="no date" form="short"/>
    <text variable="year-suffix" prefix="-"/>
    </else>
    </choose>
    </macro>


    Removing that line restores the disambiguation letters, but of course also removes the original publication date from the in-text citation. However, removing just this one line does keep the edits that add "Original date of publication..." to the references section intact.

    Any other suggestions on how to troubleshoot this?

    I get what you are saying about potentially not needing to append a/b, because of course they aren't actually originally published in the same year, just republished in the same year. But while the in-text citation that has both dates (1883/1988) gives a unique identifier, in the bibliography the original date is appended at the end, so it is easier for the reader to be able to distinguish if they have a/b appended. I'm also just trying to follow the rules indicated by my institution. :-)
  • Thinking about this again:
    the disambiguation routines checks whether in-text citations are ambiguous. When you add the archive location, they're not ambiguous anymore, so disambiguation (in this case via year suffix) doesn't kick in. There is nothing to troubleshoot, this is working as intended. I don't think it'll currently be possible for you to generate the desired effect in a citation style.
  • Hmmm. Yes, that makes sense, although not the answer I was looking for! Do you really think there is no way to add original date of publication and keep disambiguation? We can't tell Zotero to ignore the archive_location field for the purposes of comparing citations to each other?
  • I don't see how, sorry. You can try fooling the routine by playing with if disambiguate="true", but I'm not sure it's possible to get this to work the way you want. There is certainly no way intended by CSL that would allow you to do that.
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