abriviation of et alli

AnthonyGore

Hello,
I am trying Zotero using the APA reference style. I would like to have the abreviation 'et al.' in my references instead of 'e.a.'. How can I change this? Thank you.

damnation

Hi,
APA should do this correctly. Just checked and it comes out as: (Kimberly et al., 2019)

Which language have you got set?
Please check APA is actually selected in Word under Document preferences.
Please check if the authors are entered correctly in Zotero?

bwiernik

What language are you writing in, and is “et al.” the standard abbreviation used in APA writing in that language? If so, we can change the official style to use that abbreviation.

AnthonyGore

Hello,
thank your for the response. I checked my settings in Word and APA is the style I chose. I saw that I chose Dutch as language. I changed the language to Englisch (UK) and I got the correct reference with 'et al.'. I'm sorry, I was unaware that this was the problem. Thank you!

AnthonyGore

Hello,
the guidelines for APA I use say that in the first reference to a journal article with three to five authors the names of all the authors have to be mentioned in the first reference. From the second reference on the name of the first author and the abrevation 'et al.' have to be used. This doesn't seem to work at my first try. Can this be generated automatically? Thank you.

bwiernik

Those are the guidelines for APA 6th edition. In APA 7th edition, "et al." is used for all references with 3+ authors, even the first time. The Zotero APA style has been updated to 7th edition. I recommend using the 7th edition style. If you want to use APA 6th edition, you can re-install the style from the Zotero Style Repository.

Are you writing a paper in English or Dutch? In Dutch writing in APA style, is "et al." usually used instead of "e. a."?

AnthonyGore

Hello,
thank you for your response. Our students are writing a paper in Dutch where 'et al.' is usually used. Thank you.

bwiernik

@adamsmith Looking at Dutch journals and talking to a few colleagues, it looks like both "et al." and "e.a." are used, with "et al." being generally more common. How should we handle this variation in the CSL repository?

@AnthonyGore For the moment, if you want the other words of the references (Editor, etc.) to be in Dutch, but still use "et al.", you will need to edit the CSL file for the style.

In Zotero, open the Tools menu, then click Developer → Style Editor. Add the following code near the other "locale" elements:

<locale xml:lang="nl">
<terms>
<term name="et-al">et al.</term>
</terms>
</locale>

Then, change the Style title and ID near the top of the style, save, and install into Zotero (or host somewhere your students can download). For general instructions on editing CSL styles, see https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

Edit: Here are versions of the 6th edition and 7th edition styles with "et al." for Dutch language papers.

adamsmith

@bwiernik -- we typically try to identify at least one somewhat authoritative APA manual in a language before making those types of changes -- that's what we did for Norwegian and the other languages we have switched to et al.

Does that exist for Dutch?

bwiernik

No, there isn't really a manual comparable to say, DGP, for Dutch. There are very few journals using APA publishing in Dutch (e.g., the Netherlands Journal of Psychology and Psychologica Belgica both now publish in English). Tijdschrift Positieve Psychologie, Tijdschrift voor Arbeidsvraagstukken, Tijdschrift Klinische Psychologie, and Gedrag en Organisatie all use "et al." in their published forms. This is mostly a question of university guidelines for theses, I think. Gent and Tillburg both use "et al.". I could compile style guides from universities if that would be useful.

adamsmith

I think three journals and two universities is enough to go by. OK to change to et al then.

brentr

I have a modified csl which I use for both English and Dutch texts. When set to Dutch, "et-al" still renders as "e.a." while I'd like it to be "et al."

I've added the code by bwiernik to my csl but to no avail.

Untill recently I used Mendeley and my inelagant solution was to modify the locale. I cannot locate such a file for Zotero but I assume there is one (or something similair). Is the csl being overwritten/overruled by the locale file? And if so, is the change to "et al." not implemented?

adamsmith

Could we see the CSL file, please (post to pastebin.com or a similar site)? The locale terms specified in the CSL file takes precedent over the general locale file, so this should work.

The above conversation is about changing to et al is specific to the APA style, it wasn't a global change.

brentr

I uploaded the CSL to github:
https://github.com/BrentWHR/nmi_csl

The locale specified in the CSL is English. Is the solution to insert a Dutch locale in the CSL which states that "et-al" should be "et al."?
like:
locale xml:lang="nl"
terms
term name="et-al">et al. /term
terms

damnation

Have you tried?
Yes, that's the solution.

<locale xml:lang="nl">
<terms>
<term name="et-al">et al.</term>
</terms>
</locale>

brentr

This works indeed. Thank you very much.