multiple authors instead of et al.

sparklerise
When the citation contains more than two authors, and should be cited as 'author et al.' within the text, Zotero is printing out all the authors. What can I do?
I have seen this problem posted before but don't understand the suggestions offered. I think I would need step by step instructions if there is something I need to change within the program set-up. Thanx.
  • fbennett
    Two questions follow: What style are you using? and are other works by the same first author cited elsewhere in your document?
  • sparklerise
    I am using Chicago, but does not matter as long as the citations shows author and year.
    The one example I am looking at is three authors and the first is not cited again from a different article. If that is what you are asking. Some citations work correctly, others don't. Another problem is one was showing first initial though in the bibliography it is entered the same as any other.
    Strange.
  • fbennett
    edited April 19, 2012
    (Edit: here, I'm missing something simple.)

    This sounds like the effect of disambiguation, although you do say that one of the affected cites is unique. A couple of further things to check are:

    (1) if that article (by the same author) is cited more than once in the document, are you certain that it is cited from the exact same Zotero entry? Two cites to different entries with the same content will disambiguate in this way.

    (2) Do you have "track changes" turned on in the word processor? This can have bad side effects on Zotero, and should normally be turned off.
  • sparklerise
    Hm, no to both. Any other ideas? Thanks for the help.
  • fbennett
    edited April 19, 2012
    (Edit: here I'm still seeing trouble where there is none.)

    Two more questions then (they seem to come in pairs):

    (1) Does that reference appear with an extended author list in a fresh document; and

    (2) When you open the reference for editing in the Classic View via the word processor plugin, is the "Edit Citation" mini-editor opened on the citation? (If so, close it.)
  • sparklerise
    1) yes, same problem in a fresh document.
    2) I don't know what you mean by mini-editor. This may be past what I can understand. I can send this along to the computer guru at school and see if he can answer your questions and get back to you. Though he has been confused by this Zotero for a while. I'll post again during the week.
  • fbennett
    edited April 19, 2012
    (Edit: this was erroneous advice based on a misreading of the problem. Please see adamsmith's next response below.)

    There is an "Edit Citation" button in the classic plugin popup. If it was open, you would notice.

    I've run out of ideas, but we're probably missing something obvious. I have literally never heard of the processor arbitrarily extending the list of names, so it must be some rare peculiarity of your system or data. I assume you are using the latest version of Zotero (3.0.3)?

    If it is not too much trouble, please export the affected item (right-click while hovering over the item in the center panel, select "Export selected item ...", select "Zotero RDF" as the export format, and save to file. Then open the saved file with your browser or a simple editor (Notepad will do, don't use Word), select all, copy and then paste the content to http://gist.github.com. After pasting, save the content as a "Public Gist" (there is a button for that on the site), and then post the URL from the address bar back here. We can then take a look at the data and see if there is anything unusual about it.
  • sparklerise
    I am using the latest version, 3.0.3. I will do what you requested on Monday. thanks again for your help.
  • adamsmith
    This is much simpler than you guys think: Chicago author date will use et al for four and more authors in in-text citations, it will list all authors when there are three or fewer (per the instructions in the manual). If you want an author-date style that uses et al starting at three authors, try e.g. Elsevier's Harvard or Taylor and Francis Harvard X.
  • fbennett
    D'oh.
  • miesmart
    Hi, sorry to bring this back up but I have a graduate student who has the same problem. The Graduate School has told her that et al should be used for two or more authors. Given the above conversation it does not look like there is a simple way to modify an existing style. Would another option be to edit the citation in the editor? I understand that Zotero will no long be able to update the citation for the document, but for short writing pieces it might be a viable option.

    Or am I missing something?
  • adamsmith
    It really is simple to modify a style - it's changing 3 lines in a text editor (one number to get the change in et-al, two lines to change the stylename and ID)
    http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step
    even deals with this particular example. There is no need to be terrified by this just because there's no GUI.
  • miesmart
    Thanks this worked perfectly.
  • rana.bahaa
    sorry for getting you all back here again, I tried the csledit and it appears in the preview working well, but when trying to add this style there's a error saying "edit.csl" is not a valid style file." any suggestions?
Sign In or Register to comment.