APA 7 - Several webpages with same author and no date - trouble with bibliography

edited December 3, 2021
Hi, all!

I have several web pages with same author (a company), that have an unknown publication date. I use APA 7 - English (UK) with LibreOffice Writer.

According to the APA 7 manual these should be have the dates 'n.d.-a', 'n.d.-b', and so on. And I guess the -a, -b, -c are determined by the order in the bibliography (so by title).

The bibliography has trouble with assigning dates correctly. For the sake of an example I use Microsoft as the author. Right now the bibliography is as follows:

Microsoft. (n.d.).
Microsoft. (n.d.-c).
Microsoft. (n.d.).
Microsoft. (n.d. -a).
Microsoft. (n.d.).
Microsoft. (n.d.-d).
Microsoft. (n.d.-a).
Microsoft. (n.d.-b).
Microsoft. (n.d.-b).
Microsoft. (n.d.-c).

Everything is a web page, registered with the same author and no date in Zotero. Everything is in the correct order regarding the title.

Still, several instances even has the same date, and some does not have the -letter suffix. If I am not mistaken, it should look like the following:

Microsoft. (n.d.-a).
Microsoft. (n.d.-b).
Microsoft. (n.d.-c).
Microsoft. (n.d.-d).
Microsoft. (n.d.-e).
Microsoft. (n.d.-f).
Microsoft. (n.d.-g).
Microsoft. (n.d.-h).
Microsoft. (n.d.-i).
Microsoft. (n.d.-j).


I cannot see any fault in the registered metadata that should cause this.
The in-text references are also accordingly wrong.



I made some adjustments to the metadata after having cited the items in my text, can that make any difference?

Have anyone else experienced this and have a possible solution?

  • Hi,

    I just tested this out and get the correct output, both in the Style Editor as well as in LibreOffice with APA7-UK.

    in-text:
    (Microsoft, n.d.-a, n.d.-b, n.d.-c, n.d.-d)

    bib:
    Microsoft. (n.d.-a). A test title with the letter a.
    Microsoft. (n.d.-b). B test title with the letter b.
    Microsoft. (n.d.-c). C test title with the letter c.
    Microsoft. (n.d.-d). D test title with the letter d.

    I made these entries by copying them and just changed the letters in the title, so they're identical apart from that.

    Can you try in a fresh document just to rule any issues out regarding your document?
  • Also in your existing document, could you try clicking refresh and switching to a completely different style and back?
  • Thank you for the input.

    I just opened the document and Zotero on another machine (Mac). I refreshed the bibliography withouth changing citation style and it suddenly worked! Strange, but at least the problem is solved.


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