Upgrade StorageWhy alphabetic letters "a, b, or c" appearing after year for some references and how to avoid this?
Hi mates,
I noticed that one reference, when inserted with zotero, has a letter "a" attached to it. I carefully checked i have no other duplicate reference with that author name. I tried removing it from zotero library but am still able to insert it in the zotero word document through in.text citation options. I played around by removing and deleting it and then again inserting it, but this time letter "c" appears after the year. Why is that the case, and how can I avoid this?
Many thanks.
I noticed that one reference, when inserted with zotero, has a letter "a" attached to it. I carefully checked i have no other duplicate reference with that author name. I tried removing it from zotero library but am still able to insert it in the zotero word document through in.text citation options. I played around by removing and deleting it and then again inserting it, but this time letter "c" appears after the year. Why is that the case, and how can I avoid this?
Many thanks.
Good, proper reason:
You are citing two or more _different_ items by the author that were published during a single year.
Reasons due to problems:
The same publication is included two or more times in your database and you are not citing the same one. Solution -- merge the duplicate items.
You have works in your database by the same author(s) but the author names are entered differently. Alternately, you have works by _different_ authors but their names are entered the same. It is best to enter author names in the most complete form available.
Authors who have more than one works in your library should have exactly the same names in the author field (Lastname, Firstname 2 fields). Then you have the same author name but with different degrees of completeness problems can arise. You should edit the author names of your records so that an author with a last name and initials and the _same_ author with a last name and full first (given) names should be edited.
Each time the same author is is included his or her name is listed in its most complete form. If J.A. Smith is in your database multiple times and one item is by Jane Anne Smith and another is by James Alan Smith a disambiguation problem will lead to author name confusion. [A related problem can be caused by citing two different works by the same author (but their name isn't entered exactly the same) published in the same year. Zotero will treat these works as though these works are written by different authors.]
So the easiest way to fix this would be to replace every instance of that citation, making sure to always use the item listed under "My Library" in the word processor add-on, not the one listed under "Cited"
I shall try to put the items from "My Library" instead of "cited" when I used Zotero for word processor plug-in. Hope that will solve this issue. Many thanks again.
I have eight chapters to my thesis - all using Zotero citations and references. I spent the whole of Wednesday 10 January going through each chapter and deleting, then reinserting citations, each from 'My Library', as advised by Adam. Last night, producing a fresh bibliography for each chapter showed that each set of 'a' and 'b' duplicates had disappeared.
Today, having reloaded each chapter and generated new bibliographies for each, many of these 'a' and 'b' duplicates have reappeared, together with some fresh ones.
I've tried copying each chapter into a 'combined chapters' file for my complete thesis, but the same duplicates appear.
Finally, may I please stress that for each of these duplicates, I only have one record in Zotero, so this is not a matter of the same author with two different articles etc in the same year.
I now face the severe possibility of not submitting my thesis on time. Can you please kindly advise on a way forward? In some desperation, I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you - LH
Obviously this shouldn't be necessary, but this can't take longer than 30mins and should let you get your thesis in in time.
How many duplicates with a/b/c are we talking about?
For search&replace so say you have "Meyer 1999a" and "Meyer 1999b" -- you go to your bibliography (in the lunliked file). delete Meyer 1999b, remove the a from Meyer 1999a, then do search & replaces for
Meyer 1999a --> Meyer 1999,
Meyer 1999b --> Meyer 1999,
Meyer (1999a --> Meyer (1999,
Meyer (1999b --> Meyer (1999
and move on to the next one.
If you remove all duplicates from the text, the bibliography will auto-correct. If it doesn't, there's still something amiss.
I spent two days last week going through each chapter, deleting and reinserting citations, each from 'My Library', as advised by adamsmith in this discussion forum last year. But each time I generated a fresh bibliography, many 'a' and 'b' duplicates reappeared.
May I please stress that for each set of duplicates, there is only one record in Zotero?
I concluded this forum exchange on Thursday 11 January 2018 by writing that I didn’t think I had “any alternative but to work through the same deletion and reinsertion routine”.
So, following your advice, during two more days, in each chapter I continued deleting and reinserting citations from ‘My Library’ and not from ‘Cited’. Again, following your advice, I did not use the 'Add/Edit Bibliography' function. But each time I generated new bibliographies, many 'a' and 'b' duplicates reappeared, together with some fresh ones.
But there was worse to come. When I inserted the eight separate chapters into one file to produce a bibliography for the whole thesis – 108,000 words in a 1.5mb Word file - I found even more duplicates. I spent the whole of last weekend trying to delete and reinsert citations – a time consuming process with a large file, with some reinsertions each taking two to three minutes. In some cases, the Zotero software just crashed.
Though, as you advised, I did not use 'Add/Edit Bibliography', on several occasions this was the only way I could remove some duplicate references.
Faced with submitting my PhD thesis a week late, yesterday I deleted some duplicate references manually and amended some citations manually. Today I submitted my thesis with the following note:
“… the researcher also draws attention to significant referencing software difficulties, which arose only during the final week before submission of this research project. Despite ongoing discussion with colleagues and with the forum moderators for the software programme, it was not possible during the timetable agreed to reinsert in full all required citations and references. This means that there may be minor difficulties with approximately 5% of citations and references”.
Please note that I did not mention Zotero. Since I would prefer not to sound too alarming about this serious problem, can you please provide an email address where I might contact you to continue this discussion?
I guess my question is what you would like to do now. We can likely find broadly what caused this, but it will take some time and effort and the answer will almost certainly just be that you had some duplicate instance of the reference still stored in the document and didn't find them. The worst case might be that they're in hidden fields that didn't show up in a regular search but then again we're stuck with not knowing how these occurred.
If you're curious about this, I'm happy to try to run through troubleshooting with you, but it's going to take some time and I'm just wondering if you want to spend that time given that there's limited benefit at this point (which was also why my actual advice last week was to fix it manually).
I'm sorry this caught you in the last instances of submitting your thesis, but this simply is not a general problem with Zotero, so it's not like there is some bug that we would be trying to find.
So I'm not a beginner and, despite these problems, would prefer to stay with Zotero. However, it would be more convenient if we might please continue with some of this tomorrow (I'm on Scotland time and we have much snow here)?
Can you please kindly suggest first remedy I might try so that I can get back to you tomorrow? Hope that's OK.
Focus on _one_ chapter and _one_ a/b citation problem.
Refresh the document and check in text: how does the citation show up: all the time as Smith 1984a, all the time as Smith 1984b, or is it a mix?
When you insert a new citation of the same item -- does it show up as Smith 1984a or b?
Chapter Four:
Nicholls, A., 2010a. The institutionalization of social investment: The interplay of investment logics and investor rationalities. J. Soc. Entrep. 1, 70–100.
Nicholls, A., 2010b. The Legitimacy of Social Entrepreneurship: Reflexive Isomorphism in a Pre-Paradigmatic Field. Entrep. Theory Pract. 34, pp-611-633; p 611.
Nicholls, A., 2010c. The Legitimacy of Social Entrepreneurship: Reflexive Isomorphism in a Pre-Paradigmatic Field. Entrep. Theory Pract. 34, pp 611-633; p 611.
Chapter Five:
Carmel, E., Harlock, J., 2008a. Instituting the ‘Third Sector’ as a Governable Terrain: Partnership, Procurement and Performance in the UK. Policy Polit. 36, p-155 Initial Summary-pp 155-171.
Carmel, E., Harlock, J., 2008b. Instituting the ‘Third Sector’ as a Governable Terrain: Partnership, Procurement and Performance in the UK. Policy Polit. 36, p 155 Initial Summary-pp 155-171.
Ross, K., Osborne, S.P., 1999a. Making a reality of community governance. Structuring government-voluntary sector relationships at the local level. Public Policy Adm. 14, 49–61.
Ross, K., Osborne, S.P., 1999b. Making a reality of community governance. Structuring government-voluntary sector relationships at the local level. Public Policy Adm. 14, 49–61.
For all of these I have deleted and reinserted citations and they are all individual records
When you insert this from your library in the text, how does it show up? as 2008a or as 2008 b (i.e. the citation, not the bibliography)
I confirm that there is only one record for Carmel and Harlock in the database .
Can you search and find if there is any reference to Carmel & Harlock 2008b in that chapter?
I've also once more done delete and reinsert for all three citations and changed nothing in Show Editor. This time Show Editor produced one '2008' and two '2008a's. But in the new bibliography I'm still getting the same duplicates as previously.
ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"a2lltjo63m2","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Karcher, 2013)","plainCitation":"(Karcher, 2013)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1506,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/2433/items/EBQA3T3B"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/2433/items/EBQA3T3B"]
(I actually only care about the uris/uri, so you can remove everything else after that, which might be a whole bit.
ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"a1t7i0fpqe","properties":{"formattedCitation":"{\\rtf (Carmel and Harlock, 2008a; Dowling and Harvie, 2014; Fecher and L\\uc0\\u233{}vesque, 2008; Prior and Clark, 2014)}","plainCitation":"(Carmel and Harlock, 2008a; Dowling and Harvie, 2014; Fecher and Lévesque, 2008; Prior and Clark, 2014)"},"citationItems":[{"id":7212,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/3573029/items/2MFR5HSE"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/3573029/items/2MFR5HSE"],"itemData":{"id":7212,"typ
ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"a2k4j27eck4","properties":{"formattedCitation":"{\\rtf (Carmel and Harlock, 2008a; Dowling and Harvie, 2014; Fecher and L\\uc0\\u233{}vesque, 2008; Prior and Clark, 2014; Whitehead, 2015)}","plainCitation":"(Carmel and Harlock, 2008a; Dowling and Harvie, 2014; Fecher and Lévesque, 2008; Prior and Clark, 2014; Whitehead, 2015)"},"citationItems":[{"id":7212,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/3573029/items/2MFR5HSE"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/3573029/items/2M
And could you confirm that in Zotero, when you put 2MFR5HSE into the quick search field in "All fields and tags" mode, it will show you the Carmel and Harlock reference?