Inconsistensy in in-line references

WilliamKilschow
This is my first post, and if i somehow break any guidelines, please let me know.

I've made this post, because i've been told by the good people at Mendeley, that they share there repository with Zotero, and i was recommended getting in contact with Zotero, regarding this problem.

I'll try to explain the problem briefly and to the point.

The problem basically consists of an inconsistency in references. That means i can use two different sources, with the same three authors but from different years. However, the reference doesn't come out the same. It shows like this: Kjellberg et al., 2011b; Kjellberg, Ibsen, et al., 2013

Other times there is an inconsistency in how the names of authors show: (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2016) and (S. Kvale & Brinkmann, 2016)

This is with using the APA style of referencing.
It is running on windows 10, a newly downloaded version of Mendeley (Downloaded 24/04/2019), and on Microsoft office professional plus 2016.

Is this something that you've seen before, or is it a "human" error? If so, do you have a troubleshooting guide? I haven't been able to find any help online.

Best regards

William Kilschow
  • adamsmith
    (Thanks for mentioning that you're using Mendeley; helps with troubleshooting, though in this case it doesn't matter):

    In the second case you're seeing this:
    You're seeing this: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/given_name_disambiguation

    In the first case you're seeing something similar: APA disambiguates et al. chains with the same first author by listing additional authors before et al. If you have multiple Kjellberg et al. works with different second (third, etc.) authors, that's likely correct.

  • fbennett
    The first "pair" is surely just a result of normal disambiguation. The second should be symmetric, with a (different) initial for each Kvale - but that assumes that a given name is set for that author in both items.
  • WilliamKilschow
    Thank you for the quick responses, that helped out.

    However @adamsmith in the first case, there is the exact same authors on both sources. The only difference is the year that it's from.

    And i have triple checked in both cases that all sources with the same authors are typed in exactly the same.

  • bwiernik
    Check in your library that the author name is spelled exactly the same (e.g., both have the first name spelled out, both have the middle initial). If the spelling is different, the citation processor can’t realize that they are the same author and will add the disambiguation.
  • WilliamKilschow
    I've checked, and they are spelled exactly the same. I've even checked it multiple times to be sure. This is also why i'm so confused about it.

    Thank you again.

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