Zotero not recognising 2 similar references

Nigel007
I am trying to reference two different web pages:
http://www.universitiesnz.ac.nz/studying-in-nz/domestic
http://www.universitiesnz.ac.nz/studying-in-nz/international

The author for each is "Universities New Zealand" and the date 2014

Zotero has stored them as two separate entries (and holds snapshots of each) but when it comes to generating the reference list, it treats them as having two different authors - the first is placed at the start of the reference list and the 2nd in its correct alphabetical place.

I'm using Chicago 16th author-date style.

Thanks
  • adamsmith
    double-check the author - it's likely not entered correctly. One possibility would be that you have a space at the beginning of the author. Another option would be that you have the entire author in the "First Name" field for the item that gets listed first in the reference list. There might be another option, but this is almost certainly a data entry issue. (Neither of those sites has a URL bar icon with Zotero, so for both you'd have to have had entered the author manually).
  • Nigel007
    Hi - many thanks for the prompt reply. I also thought it was a mis-spelling or an extra space, so I cut and pasted the author into both references - and still the same problem. In case it was somehow related to the in-document reference, I deleted and replaced both the references (both appear the same in the text - no 'a' or 'b' extension to the date) and then deleted and regenerated the reference list. I was using the single author name field.

    The same thing is happening when I switch to the last/first name author fields and copy the same text into just the last name of the author field (i.e. leave first name blank).

    Very strange
  • adamsmith
    Export both items as Zotero RDF (no notes/files), open the exported file with a text editor (Notepad, TextEdit) and paste its entire content to a public gist at gist.github.com - provide the URL here.
  • Nigel007
    Sorry but I don't have (and don't want to get) a github account.
    Here is a Dropbox link:
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/autjwuxujykw5l3/NCEA.rdf
  • Nigel007
    whoops - sorry I didn't fully understand your last posting before I provided the file.
    Here is the gist link
    https://gist.github.com/anonymous/9820952
  • adamsmith
    (you don't need an account to create a gist on github and it makes the text visible immediately w/o download, that's why we use/recommend it)

    Those work fine for me. How about if you re-import them and use those items instead?
  • Nigel007
    Success - importing them solved the problem. Many thanks.
  • Nigel007
    One other comment - importing them also added a 'date' field which was the date/time of importing (although not my local time - here is it 28 March 12.09 pm, the date/time is given as 27 Mar 20:44), not the date/time of accessing the web page.
  • adamsmith
    I see that - that's not right, we'll take a look, but it's not the date of importing: if you look at the RDF file the date/time is in there already.
    Are you sure it couldn't have been the time you accessed them?
  • Nigel007
    No - I've just added them this morning (my time) so the 'Date Accessed' should equal the 'Date'. Last night I went to be bed early ;}
  • adamsmith
    that'd make sense - the timestamp is probably UTC, which is 12 hours behind you (assuming you're in New Zealand), so that'd have been the access date. It still shouldn't import as date, though.
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