First name appearing in in-text citation?

milst1
For some reason, one particular author's first name keeps showing up in the in-text citations. It's driving me a little crazy. I can see that the entries were made with separated last,first naming. Is there a way to fix this easily, or do I have to manually edit it out? I'm on deadline. Thanks.
  • damnation
    probably due to the author disambiguation. What's the name of the author and is there a similar citation in your bibliography? Also, what style are you using?
  • adamsmith
    https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/given_name_disambiguation
  • milst1
    Author disambiguation...mmm. That's probably right.
    APA.
    The author's name appears in different forms in different pubs.
    S.E. Kimes in some, Sheryl E. Kimes in others, etc.
    So I need to standardize across all pubs she is in, despite the way it appears in the publication?
  • adamsmith
    correct, yes. Always use the full name in Zotero.
  • milst1
    Yeah, that fixed it. Pain in the neck, but it works.

    Thank you very very much for your help, damnation.
  • psyguy
    Thanks, that also helped me. I notice the duplicate citations are yet another painful inheritance of Mendeley.
  • lestevez13
    Hello, I'm having this same problem but even when I changed the names in my library my document is still using the first name in my in-text citations. Does someone knows why is this happening or how can I fix it?
  • adamsmith
    Check if this also happens in a new document.
  • HansonMA
    I also had this same problem, and just tried adamsmith's suggestion. It does not happen in a new document. I suppose I can just copy/paste the whole document over without the incorrect citations and re-add them? But is there a better way to do this? Refreshing doesn't work.
  • dstillman
    @HansonMA: See "Deleted Citations" on the support page linked page.
  • ASouthcoat
    I seem to be having the same issue with a citation of one author who wrote a paper on his own I'm citing, and then teamed up with his wife. even though the years are different its insisting on using his first name :( I read the page on xml editing, but does anyone know how to access that?
  • adamsmith
    @ASouthcoat -- which citation style and are you user including the first name is incorrect? In APA style, for example, if he's first author on the solo pub and his wife on the joint one, then including both first initials in text would be correct.
  • ASouthcoat
    APA 7th, yes but its using full name rather than initial. Also I've noticed when I'm citing two papers by the same author in different years its insisting on his full name too
  • bwiernik
    It will use the full name if the initials are the same—“James” and “Joyce” for example.
  • kgodde
    I am experiencing a similar problem. I have reformatted my author names several times to try to work around it, but am having some form of issue no matter how they are formatted in Zotero.

    I have a husband and wife team, let's call Bob A. Smith and Sally R. Smith. No matter how I play with their names in Zotero (full names, initials, full first name with middle initial), I get the following in-text citations of their works:

    B. A. Smith & Smith
    Bob A. Smith & Smith

    My understanding is they should appear as:

    B. Smith & S. Smith

    Am I missing something with APA style?
  • adamsmith
    If the team always publishes in the same order, they should actually appear as Smith & Smith, so the problem would appear to be the fact that you don't have Bob A. formatted exactly the same way in Zotero
    Have you tested in a fresh document?
  • kgodde
    I just examined the entire document and see the team publishes in different orders. When Sally publishes first, the citation becomes:

    S. Smith & Smith

    I went through my Zotero library multiple times and searched for every instance of researchers with Smith as a last name and made sure the names are formatted the same every time. I only have 32 references with authors with the names of Smith, so it doesn't take long to get through.

    I just tested in a fresh document and have the same issue.
  • kgodde
    Sorry; I have a typo above. When Sally publishes first the citation is:

    S. A. Smith & Smith
  • bwiernik
    Then that is correct APA style. The initials are only added to the first author, and then only if there are multiple _first_ authors with the same surname.
  • kgodde
    Ok, interesting. The example I was using does not do this, so I will have to more thoroughly read the style manual to understand. Thank you!
  • adamsmith
    Well,
    B. A. Smith & Smith
    Bob A. Smith & Smith
    is still not correct: if that's the same author, it should be B. A. Smith & Smith. I'd strongly suspect that's a data entry issue though; are you positive you can reproduce that in a fresh document?
  • kgodde
    Oh, I'm sorry I was unclear. The change from B. A. Smith to Bob A. Smith was when I changed the names in Zotero (from B. A. Smith to Bob A. Smith). So, if Bob A. Smith is the only name reported for the author in Zotero, all in-text citations are Bob A. Smith & Smith. If I switch all names to B. A. Smith in Zotero, the in-text citations become B. A. Smith & Smith.
  • adamsmith
    OK, yes, then everything is correct (though I'd recommend storing "Bob A." throughout as that will produce correct output in more styles. Zotero should automatically turn this into B. A. for APA style if you have it for all items consistently)
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