How to find the offending ambiguous name?

gkshenaut
I have three references with the same author, First M. Last (all are multi-author works; as it happens, Last is first author in each). Zotero APA6 insists on disambiguating this name (Last, First M.). I've searched everything I can think of, and I can't find any other authors named Last. I suppose that a translator or editor, etc., named Last would trigger this, but I have found no field anywhere that contains the name Last. I tried making all three First M. Last, then Last, First M.; this changed nothing. Any suggestions?
  • bwiernik
    Search for Last in your Word document and find the citation with a different set of given names/initials. Edit that citation, click on its blue bubble in the Zotero citation window, and click Show in Library. Edit the data as necessary. If you don’t see the Show in Library button, then delete this citation and re-insert from your library.
  • adamsmith
    There's something odd, though:
    Zotero would disambiguate as "First M. Last" in APA, not "Last, First M." If you're actually seeing the latter, it would seem like you have the name entered incorrectly (maybe the whole thing including comma in single field mode?)
  • gkshenaut
    I tried entering the names of all three instances as First M. Last, then as Last, First M. Since this made no difference except that the citation was always the same as how I had entered the name, I am intrigued by this idea of “single field mode”. I should mention that many but all names in the bibliography as a whole show a tag [first] on them, including the name in question. Also, I should mention that my bibliography was imported from EndNote. I will try to find out more about single field mode.
  • gkshenaut
    OK, now I get it. The field containing (first) is actually a blank where the first name(s) should go. Apparently, the EndNote import interpreted quite a few of my author names as “single field” style names, and that happened to be the first one I used. Thank you.
  • adamsmith
    That's surprising on EndNote import -- would you mind saying how exactly you exported/imported to Zotero?
  • gkshenaut
    This was some time ago. I followed the directions. It seemed to work, at the time. This is the first new project I've started since then, so the first time I've tried Zotero. By inspection it seems that the single-field problem occurred with all names in EndNote that were entered First M. Last, but names entered as Last, First M. appear to be OK.
  • adamsmith
    That makes sense -- and Endnote is happy either way?
  • gkshenaut
    Yeah, usually EndNote can handle either format

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