Three in text issues - et al. not appearing, initials of authors, a and b versions

Rosesparker
Hi there

I am using this style (https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwizq4Lf9o3MAhUBJg8KHar-AYEQFggdMAA&url=https://www.zotero.org/styles/harvard-london-south-bank-university&usg=AFQjCNF9Y4WUvQLMjeeSCnAkyttWX67txw&sig2=ysnrkbF8uACXiY7bAk-VFw).

I am having some problems with the way the reference appears in text. There are 3 separate problems although they may be related.

1. For some references (but not all) the et al. is not appearing and I am instead getting a list of authors.

2. For some references (but not all) I am getting the initials of the authors appearing where it should just be their last name.

3. For some references (but not all) the same reference is appearing as a and b even though the reference is exactly the same.

I'd be grateful for any help with any of these issues. I am quite new to this so please bear with me.

Many thanks
  • damnation
    Hi,

    It kind of sounds more like that you have some references duplicated in your database and also with some data in fields (initials) where they shouldn't be. Could you maybe give some example references you're using and we can test it.
    I know that in Mendeley it didn't import PDF metadata really well and it was better to import references from pinned for example. Maybe it's something similar.
  • adamsmith
    edited January 7, 2017
    Yeah, 3, is almost certainly a duplicate. 2. could be wrongly entered data, but might also be https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/given_name_disambiguation

    1. could also be a form of disambiguation, possibly also caused by duplicates: the style adds additional authors to disambiguate between two different et als, i.e. If you have Smith, Meyer, Jones 2012 and Smith, Meyer, Jackson 2012, it shows all three authors rather than do Smith 2012a and Smith 2012b (which would suggest the same authors on both publications).
  • kbrewsaugh
    For your issue #2, I had the same thing today as well. I have about 10 citations in Zotero for one author. In some cases his full first name is used while in others it was just one initial or two initials (first and middle). For some reason, the in text citation for one article was being given as (J. Last) rather than (Last). Problem was only fixed when I went through and manually changed all of the citations in Zotero to be exactly the same for his name.
  • Rosesparker
    Hi everyone

    Thank you so much for your comments. I have checked the duplicate items of my zotero library and it is clear. Here's some examples from my text.

    1. Example below:

    Research reports that parents feel distressed (Ferrell, Rhiner, Shapiro, and Dierkes, 1994; Hedén et al., 2013), helpless, and frustrated (Ferrell, Rhiner, Shapiro, and Dierkes, 1994; Hellsten, 2000) when seeing their child in pain. Pain impacts every area of family life (Ferrell, Rhiner, Shapiro, and Dierkes, 1994).

    2. Example below:

    Four key studies sought to quantify the pain experience of children with cancer at home. The first used semi-structured interviews with 20 children and their parents to ascertain the location, source, and intensity of pain of home as well as pain management strategies (E. A. Bossert et al., 1996).

    I tried to fix this problem by manually changing all references to Bossert to EA. Unfortunately, I now have this problem:

    Bossert, E. A., Van Cleve, L. and Savedra, M. C. (1996) Children with cancer: the pain experience away from the health care setting, Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing: Official Journal of the Association of Pediatric Oncology Nurses, 13 (3), pp. 109–120.

    Bossert, E., Van Cleve, L. and Savedra, M. (1996) Children with cancer: the pain experience away from the health care setting, Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing, 13 (3), pp. 109–120 12p.

    All references in my library read EA so I don't know where the just E has appeared from?!

    3.

    Example 1:Here's an example of what I have in my reference section, the references are slightly difference which accounts for the a and b but they are clearly the same paper. The problem is that I only have one reference for this paper in my zotero library (unless there is a hidden other section I don't know about...)

    Twycross, A., Parker, R., Williams, A. and Gibson, F. (2015a) Cancer-Related Pain and Pain Management: Sources, Prevalence, and the Experiences of Children and Parents, Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing: Official Journal of the Association of Pediatric Oncology Nurses. DOI:10.1177/1043454214563751.

    Twycross, A., Parker, R., Williams, A. and Gibson, F. (2015b) Cancer-Related Pain and Pain Management Sources, Prevalence, and the Experiences of Children and Parents, Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing, 32 (6), pp. 369–384.

    Example 2: I can't see the differences between these references (other than a and b) and yet there is only one reference in my zotero library.

    Zhukovsky, D. S., Rozmus, C. L., Robert, R. S., Bruera, E., Wells, R. J., Chisholm, G. B., Allo, J. A. and Cohen, M. Z. (2015a) Symptom profiles in children with advanced cancer: Patient, family caregiver, and oncologist ratings, Cancer, 121 (22), pp. 4080–4087. DOI:10.1002/cncr.29597.

    Zhukovsky, D. S., Rozmus, C. L., Robert, R. S., Bruera, E., Wells, R. J., Chisholm, G. B., Allo, J. A. and Cohen, M. Z. (2015b) Symptom profiles in children with advanced cancer: Patient, family caregiver, and oncologist ratings, Cancer, 121 (22), pp. 4080–4087. DOI:10.1002/cncr.29597.

    Any advice gratefully received.
  • adamsmith
    Sounds like you have duplicates in your document. One way that would happen is if you delete duplicates from your libary rather than using "merge duplicate". Zotero then uses data stored in the document and the only way to replace that would be to delete and re-insert the citation. Another way this may happen would be to insert citations from different libraries.

    For 1. -- any other reference by Ferrel in that document?
  • Rosesparker
    Thank you so much for your help on this without which this situation would be significantly more stressful - it is really appreciated.

    Okay, sounds like there's no short-cut to going through the document and changing references individually.

    Re: Ferrell.

    Yes, I have copied below the other references.

    There have been repeated calls to educate parents regarding pain management early in the disease trajectory (Ferrell, Rhiner, Shapiro, and Dierkes, 1994; Ferrell, Rhiner, Shapiro, and Strause, 1994; Flury et al., 2011a; Lu et al., 2011a; Rhiner et al., 1994; Twycross et al., 2015).

    Many have called for interventions to support parents managing their child’s pain resultant from a variety of acute and long-term conditions (Ferrell BR, Rhiner M, Shapiro B, and Dierkes M, 1994; Ferrell BR, Rhiner M, Shapiro B, and Strause L, 1994; Flury et al., 2011b; Fortier et al., 2011; Lu et al., 2011b; Rhiner M et al., 1994; Twycross et al., 2015).

    Any thoughts welcome.
  • adamsmith
    Right, so the Ferrell reference is behaving as intended in the style -- it's adding last names until the two Ferrell et al. 1994 references can be distinguished (i.e. by their last author).
    It's possible that's not what the style guide prescribes (or, most likely, it's just silent on the topic), so if you can provide documentation from the styleguide or correspondence directly from the organization that this should be handled differently, we can change it.
  • Rosesparker
    Okay so problems 2 and 3 are sorted - thank you.

    What you have said about the Ferrell issue makes sense. My organisation guidelines say the following:

    3.2 Work with three or more authors
    For three authors or more, put et al. after the name of the first author in the in-text citation.
    Example: … Anderson et al. (2003) concluded that …
    Et al. is an abbreviation of the Latin et alia meaning “and others”.
    Note: In your reference list you should list all authors unless there is a very long list of authors in which case, reference the first six and then put et al. However, students studying Health and Social Care courses should list all authors in the reference list even if there are more than six authors.

    3.3 Multiple references with the same author and publication year
    Documents with the same author and publication year can be distinguished from each other by putting a letter after the year in both the in-text citations and reference list.
    Example: … (Williamson, 2001a), (Williamson, 2001b) etc. …

    I am happy to send a pdf version but not sure how. Is this what you are looking for?
  • adamsmith
    right, but these two unfortunately don't speak to the issue of what to do in the present situation. 3.3 refers to the same and publication year, but the issue with your Ferrell et al citations is precisely that they do not have the same authors.
  • Rosesparker
    I will try to contact my organisation for their assistance on this.
  • bowmans4
    Hi Adamsmith,

    I work in the library at LSBU, and have been conversing with Roses. Would it be possible for the coding to reflect the following for the in-text citation?

    Ferrell BR, Rhiner M, Shapiro B, and Dierkes M, 1994 to show as (Ferrell et al, 1994a)

    and

    Ferrell BR, Rhiner M, Shapiro B, and Strause L, 1994 to show as (Ferrell et al, 2004b)

    and have this reflected in the bibliography?

    Many Thanks,

    Steve b
  • bwiernik
    edited August 4, 2017
    @bowmans4 Yes, in this line of the code:
    <citation et-al-min="3" et-al-use-first="1" disambiguate-add-year-suffix="true" disambiguate-add-names="true" disambiguate-add-givenname="true" collapse="year" givenname-disambiguation-rule="primary-name">

    Delete disambiguate-add-names="true".

    If you also would like these two reference to be displayed in the same way, so that first authors with the same family name, but different given names are also simply shown with a,b suffixes:

    Ferrell BR, Rhiner M, Shapiro B, and Dierkes M, 1994 to show as (Ferrell et al, 1994a)
    and
    Ferrell AN, Wilnson BT, and Strause L, 1994 to show as (Ferrell et al, 2004b)

    Then also delete disambiguate-add-givenname="true" and givenname-disambiguation-rule="primary-name".
  • bowmans4
    Fab!

    Might I assume that this can be done at Zotero's end?

    Not being a user, I have no idea where the code 'lives'!
  • bwiernik
    Is this formatting the requirement for the official style guide for London South Bank University? If so, we can make that change. Otherwise, you can download the style from the link at the top of the post, make the change above, then change the style ID and name at the top of the file.

    Basic style editing steps here:
    https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step
  • bowmans4
    Hi bwiernik,

    Yes, this is required by the official style guide for LSBU.

    Many thanks for your assistance,

    Stephen A Bowman BA(Hons) MA MSc FCLIP SFHEA

    Senior Information Adviser for Health and Social Care
    London South Bank University
    Perry Library, 250 Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 6NJ
    t: +44 (0)20 7815 6697
    e: bowmans4@lsbu.ac.uk
  • damnation
    I've put in a fix for this. can you test this style: https://github.com/POBrien333/styles/raw/b75aaedaffa71a2cae21bd190efda424d06d7a75/harvard-london-south-bank-university.csl
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