letters a, b, for same authors/year do not apper sequentially

ariannabassan · June 5, 2021

Hello, I am using the style Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, and I noticed that the letters a, b added to citations for the same author/year do not appear sequentially in the main text. So (XXX, 2008b) comes before (XXX, 2008a). Does it depend on the order they appear in the bibliography (and which is that?)? I think that they should be "numbered" according to the appearance in the text rather than in the bibliography. Thanks.

adamsmith · June 5, 2021

Yeah, the a, b follows the order in the bibliography -- in some styles, the order for items in the same year is determined alphabetically by the title, but that's not the case for Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology -- I'd have expected those to appear in order of appearance in the text (which then would also mean a/b are in order of appearance). Can you experiment and see if you can determine any pattern? Might this be in order in which you add them to the text (which would be non-sensical of course)

ariannabassan · June 6, 2021

Thanks! I cannot reproduce the misbehaviour in a new file or identify a pattern. The paper where this happens is long and the references are many.