Author's first name shows in citations using APA Style (6)

rayouby
Hi,

I changed the style format in my paper (Word 2007 compatibility mode 2003) to APA Style (6th edition) from MIS Quarterly style. Now many citations show the author's first name in the in text citations. For example:

(John W. Atkinson, Heyns, & Veroff, 1954, p. 406)

instead of

(Atkinson, Heyns, & Veroff, 1954, p. 406)

My understanding is that APA Style would be as in the second instance not the first. Additionally this issue is inconsistent and seems irrelevant to number of authors.

Any ideas of what the problem is and how to remedy it? (I edited the text in some citations, but I'm afraid that would not work and it is not consistent and sustainable. What will be the consequences of these edits? fix?)

Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    You're almost certainly seeing this: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/given_name_disambiguation
    you likely have to different spellings of John W. Atkinson as first authors in Zotero and in the document.
    APA has broader disambiguation rules than many journals (i.e. all first authors are disambiguated, even if not strictly necessary to tell citations apart).
  • rayouby
    Thank you AdamSmith! Will check my library!
  • zurpher
    Hi,

    I think I have the same problem with APA 6. I (did try to) disambiguate the name but something still appears to be missing.

    This are the references:
    Ehren, M. C. M., Altrichter, H., McNamara, G., & O’Hara, J. (2013). Impact of school inspections on improvement of schools—describing assumptions on causal mechanisms in six European countries. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 25(1), 3–43. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-012-9156-4

    Ehren, M. C. M., Leeuw, F. L., & Scheerens, J. (2005). On the impact of the Dutch educational supervision act: Analyzing assumptions concerning the inspection of primary education. American Journal of Evaluation, 26(1), 60–76. http://doi.org/10.1177/1098214004273182

    Ehren, M. C. M., & Visscher, A. J. (2006). Towards a theory on the impact of school inspections. British Journal of Educational Studies, 54(1), 51–72. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2006.00333.x
    This is the in-text reference:
    (M. C. M. Ehren, Altrichter, McNamara, & O’Hara, 2013; M. C. M. Ehren, Leeuw, & Scheerens, 2005; Leeuw, 2003)
    Why does the APA style still disambiguate M. C. M. Ehren even though all Zotero data entries appear to be the same now?
  • adamsmith
    impossible to say without seeing the actual items. Export to Zotero RDF, open in a text editor, select all, copy&paste to gist.github.com --> create public gist (you won't need to register) and provide the link here.
  • zurpher
    I have to admit that hitting "zotero refresh" worked now. (I thought I had done it before.)

    Is there a reliable code for batch editing author names? It would be great to be able to unify author names that way. However, given my first experience with Zotero JavaScript API, I realise that one has to be very careful to get it right.

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