Upgrade StorageDisambiguation error in Zotero's interpretation of APA7?
I've been trying to get to the bottom of what looks like a problem with Zotero and APA7 for several hours, and would appreciate your review?
I read https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/365437#Comment_365437, with thanks for the comments and work so far. Since mine is a different issue (a citation with the same author only when reduced to 'et al') and has other unique elements, I decided to open a new thread.
I have two references, each with a similar-sounding surname and 3+ other authors. Zotero, in the Style Preview for APA7 and in a LibreOffice document, decides that the in-text citation needs disambiguation as follows:
(R. G. dos Santos et al., 2016)
(B. W. L. Santos et al., 2020)
I believe this should be:
(dos Santos et al., 2016)
(Santos et al., 2020)
I understand that Zotero treats 'Santos' and 'dos Santos' as the same. Though unintuitive to this Brit, that decision seems, on reflection, the right move, based on my ignorance of Spanish/(Brazillian) Portuguese.
Still, my problem remains. In the relevant thread linked above, I see that bwiernikto refers to the APA7 manual, section 8.20. However, section 8.18 is more relevant to my situation as I describe above. APA7 section 8.18 states, in my situation, FIRST that if the years are different, there is no need for further disambiguation. SECOND that the way to disambiguate, if necessary, is to add the minimum number of 'et al' authors to distinguish the reference, rather than add given names.
The first rule of 8.18 applies to my situation and leads to my preferred citation. The second rule does not, but would apply elsewhere in my document. Zotero applies the rules of section 8.20 to my situation, and my reading suggests that is incorrect.
Do you agree that there is an error in Zotero's implementation of the APA7 guidance?
I'm on the latest Zotero for Mac, and submitted an associated Zotero error report: 987179392.
Best wishes,
Adam
I read https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/365437#Comment_365437, with thanks for the comments and work so far. Since mine is a different issue (a citation with the same author only when reduced to 'et al') and has other unique elements, I decided to open a new thread.
I have two references, each with a similar-sounding surname and 3+ other authors. Zotero, in the Style Preview for APA7 and in a LibreOffice document, decides that the in-text citation needs disambiguation as follows:
(R. G. dos Santos et al., 2016)
(B. W. L. Santos et al., 2020)
I believe this should be:
(dos Santos et al., 2016)
(Santos et al., 2020)
I understand that Zotero treats 'Santos' and 'dos Santos' as the same. Though unintuitive to this Brit, that decision seems, on reflection, the right move, based on my ignorance of Spanish/(Brazillian) Portuguese.
Still, my problem remains. In the relevant thread linked above, I see that bwiernikto refers to the APA7 manual, section 8.20. However, section 8.18 is more relevant to my situation as I describe above. APA7 section 8.18 states, in my situation, FIRST that if the years are different, there is no need for further disambiguation. SECOND that the way to disambiguate, if necessary, is to add the minimum number of 'et al' authors to distinguish the reference, rather than add given names.
The first rule of 8.18 applies to my situation and leads to my preferred citation. The second rule does not, but would apply elsewhere in my document. Zotero applies the rules of section 8.20 to my situation, and my reading suggests that is incorrect.
Do you agree that there is an error in Zotero's implementation of the APA7 guidance?
I'm on the latest Zotero for Mac, and submitted an associated Zotero error report: 987179392.
Best wishes,
Adam
That said, “Santos” and “dos Santos” should be treated as different names, and “dos Santos” should be sorted under “D”. (APA does not follow language-specific particle rules—it just treats all names literally.) How exactly do you have “dos Santos” entered in Zotero, and where is it being sorted in your reference list.
I hope helpful to make the following point: my copy of the APA 7 manual under 8.18 doesn't mention different or same authors. It says the rule is intended for the scenario where multiple citations 'shorten to the same in-text citation form' and 'shorten to the same form' (direct quotes from APA 7 8.18).
My interpretation finds further support in 8.17, which says 'include the name of only the first author plus 'et al.' in every citation, including the first citation, *unless doing so would create ambiguity (see Section 8.18)'. 8.17 comes before 8.18 and 8.20 and suggests precedence, and that I should not make use of 'et al' until the reference is unambiguous.
The above may all be moot given your second point. That is INDEED a mystery.
Screenshots
dos Santos reference: https://ibb.co/Jc44rZT
Santos reference: https://ibb.co/tzcNNRs
As you can see, my data is clean and in the right places, as far as I can tell?
Here's my test if helpful to share: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eivq6ajomue107l/dosSantos-disambiguation-test.odt?dl=0
Again many thanks for your help with this. I expect it continues to be my misunderstanding either of APA 7 or Zotero but, since there's a possibility of a bug, I hope worth checking it out.
This has been the rule in APA ever since 6th edition at least and I believe before. It simply is correct APA style to have author initials.
When I meant sorting, I meant in the word document, not Zotero.
I imported those items into my library, and I can confirm the behavior that dos Santos is sorting under D (correct), but also dismabiguating (incorrect). That’s a bug in the citation processor. I’ll report that.
In the references list of the document, dos Santos sorts under 'D' and Santos under 'S'. Here's my file in Word format: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m86gm5jb0p1qmot/dosSantos-disambiguation-test.docx?dl=0
Knowing this uppercase workaround is great.
Thanks for reporting the bug.
Section 9.9 of APA7 says a) 'write the author's surname exactly as it appears in the published work' and c) 'Retain the author's preferred capitalization'.
In my case, the answer to both is 'dos Santos' e.g. http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/bdrb.20272, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881116652578
However, section 9.9 ALSO says b) 'consult other works that cite that author'. That's potentially contradictory in this case because I've seen this author cited as 'Dos Santos' many times. Including, ironically, the very paper I'm trying to cite, on which dos Santos is himself the first author: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881116652578
Yet, another paper, for which dos Santos is second author, lists him in the reference list as 'dos Santos': https://www.iceers.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Ayahuasca_Technical_Report_ICEERS_2017_ENG.pdf
I see no clear way to resolve this. I'd certainly save myself a lot of trouble if I switch to Dos Santos, but I imagine 'dos Santos' to be more respectful. Unless you know a reason to use Dos Santos, beyond the above?
That may get into referencing help, a request that I can take elsewhere. My only intention here was to flag a potential software bug.
Thanks again for your prompt assistance, and for the work on improving Zotero.
If the preferred form is indeed lower-case, you could also wrap the last name in double quotes, like this
"dos Santos". This prevents the “dos” from being parsed as a particle at all.I've changed all similar occurences in my library to use this format of enclosed double quotes. The references now come out as expected, both in the Zotero Style Preview and LibreOffice.
Thank you!