Style APA 6 displays all author names in text

afhoke
I'm using American Psychological Association 6th edition, and all my citations are showing all author names in the in-text citation. For example (John Smith Jane Doe, & Bill Jones, 2013) instead of just (Smith 2013). This does not appear to be in agreement with the way the style is advertised. How can I fix it?

I'd be open to just using another style that doesn't do this is someone can recommend one. All I want in the text is one last name and a year, unless disambiguation is needed.

Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    one of two reasons:
    1. You have the name entered incorrectly - it needs to be entered as "Smith, John" in two field mode (i.e. there should be a single white rectangle after the name)
    2. you're seing a version of disambiguation: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/given_name_disambiguation
  • afhoke
    Okay, that got rid of the first names, but I still get all author last names, for example (Smith, Doe, Jones, 2013) instead of just (Smith, 2013) or (Smith et al, 2013).
  • adamsmith
    according to APA, you're supposed to get up to five author names before using et al, so that's by design. If you want APA style, you should go with that. If you just want any author-date style, there are many alternatives that only print up to two or three names. E.g. Chicago (author-date) uses et al for more than 3 authors, Elsevier Harvard for more than 2.
  • afhoke
    Ah, I didn't realize that. Thanks for the quick responses!

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