Author Initials Appearing in Citations

rchernick

I've tried to figure out why this is happening with no luck. Some of my in-text citations (APA 7th Edition) continue to add the initials of the author. I have no other citations in my library with this author, so that's not the problem. I have deleted and then readded the citation and that didn't work.

adamsmith

Have you tested this with a new document with a single citation? If it does occur there, could we see the bibliography entry (just paste here)?

If it only happens in an existing document, it's going to be https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/given_name_disambiguation (might be an old duplicate or so -- again, looking at the bibliography might help)

rchernick

OK, I do have another citation with the same last name and first initial. But it's a different year. Zotero is trying to distinguish between the two, but it doesn't need to.
When I created a new document with just one of these citations, it works, no initial. But when I use both, both citations have initials. See below.

Brown, S. (2002). Women and addiction: Expanding theoretical points of view. In The handbook of addiction treatment for women (pp. 26–51). Jossey-Bass.
Brown, S. A. (2011). Standardized measures for substance use stigma. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 116(1–3), 137–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.12.005

rchernick

Here is what it looks like with both citations in the brand new document.

Hello (S. A. Brown, 2011)
And also (S. Brown, 2002)

adamsmith

That's simply correct APA style. First authors are always disambiguated in APA (since they appear in different locations in the bibliography), not just when that's required to distinguish citations.

rchernick

Oh wow, I had no idea. I wonder if this is new to APA 7th? I don't remember this from APA 6th. Thanks so much! I heart my Zotero software!

adamsmith

No, that stayed the same between 6th and 7th ed

rchernick

OK, I guess I've been doing it wrong!!
Thanks again for your help, Adam, much appreciated.

DWL-SDCA

If S. Brown and S.A. Brown are indeed the same person you should edit your records so that the most complete author name is used in all of your records (even if a less-complete name is used in one of the publications).

bwiernik

@rchernick this is the most commonly misunderstood rule in APA style in my experience, so you’re far from the only one to miss it.

rchernick

S. Brown and S.A. Brown are two different authors, so the citations are correct.
Thank you @bwiernik -- learn something new every day!