APA format error with hyphen before n.d.

djsnyder83501

I have a Zotero question for you. When I use my Reference function for multiple no date authors, I get a hyphen- see below. According to our Writing Center, this is not correct APA formatting? Do you know how to get Zotero to cite this correctly? Have you seen this issue before?

American Red Cross. (n.d.-a). Mission, vision, and fundamental principles. Retrieved from http://www.redcross.org/about-us/mission

American Red Cross. (n.d.-b). Our history. Retrieved from http://www.redcross.org/about-us/history

American Red Cross. (n.d.-c). Volunteer management manual part 1: Volunteer management basics. American Red Cross.

(Note from Writing Center…No need for hyphens before the letter after this and subsequent sources: (n.d.a), (n.d.b), (n.d.c), and so on. Keep this idea in mind when citing in the body of your paper as well.)

I’d be very grateful for any “light” you could shed on this topic 

adamsmith

Your writing center is wrong. While this isn't covered in the APA manual (I think--at least I couldn't find it quickly) it is covered quite explicitly on the APA blog:

The only difference between these types of references and references with publication years is that “in press” and “no date” references contain a hyphen before the a, b, and so forth:

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/01/alphabetizing-in-press-and-no-date-references.html

When you look at the citations you have above, that makes perfect sense, too: for n.d.a it's very easy to read the "a" as part of the abbreviations, which is rather confusing.

djsnyder83501

Thank you, Adam. I appreciate your information. Deb