In-text citation error when an author has two publications with the same year

sb197
Hi, Can someone please help me to fix the in-text citation error automatically? Currently, when there are two publications from an author with the same year, instead of showing a first, it shows b first, for example (Banki, 2000b) and then after a couple of pages it shows (Banki, 2000a). How can I fix this issue, otherwise I have to do it all manually, please help?
  • adamsmith
    In most citation styles this is correct - it definitely is for APA styles, for example. a and b is determined by the order in the bibliography, which is typically alphabetically by title. Do you have any reason to believe that this is actually incorrect in the style you´re using (which?)
  • bwiernik
    In previous editions of APA Style, "a" and "b" were added based on order of appearance in the text, rather than their order in the bibliography. However, this was changed at least in APA 5th edition (and kept in APA 6th).
  • sb197
    Hi, both of my supervisors (well-known geographers) prefer me to cite the in-text based on order of appearance in the text (i.e. a first and than b) rather than their order in the bibliography. Is there a way I can do this automatically? I want to cite the in-text based on the order of appearance in the text. Please suggest!
  • bwiernik
    edited January 30, 2018
    I would not be surprised if your well-known supervisors are mistaken about the citation rules here for APA style (if that is the style you are following). Many more senior academics are. You can show them this explanation from APA confirming that a, b, etc. should be assigned based on the order in the bibliography, not the order of appearance (which, to be frank, makes much more sense when it comes to trying to find the references in the reference list--if it were based on order of appearance that would mean that a, b, etc. would be randomly ordered in the list, which would be very unhelpful):
    http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/10/reference-twins.html

    @adamsmith I don't think CSL has a way to assign a, b except by sort order of the Bibliography, correct?
  • adamsmith
    edited January 31, 2018
    We can do this in the styles (technical note: by adding citation-number as the third sort key in the bibliography), but as bwiernik says, at least APA style is completely unambiguous about what way is correct. If you want to customize your citation style, we can walk you through what to do, but I agree it's the wrong thing to do (and faculty shouldn't waste their time telling graduate students how to cite anyway).
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited January 31, 2018
    I know 2 faculty members who still insist on APA 4! Material not covered by APA 4th? Then not acceptable as a reference.
  • sb197
    Well, I was told to follow what is covered in APA 4th version. @adamsmith could you please walk me through version 4th. I know it's not a correct version, but my supervisors want me to follow if I want my thesis to be approved for examination! And also I was told to remove all the initial when we cite two different authors with same last name in-text such as (B. Anderson, 2000) and (M. Anderson 2001). Is there a way we could remove the initial as well? I am asked to remove that as well. Thanks!
  • bwiernik
    edited January 31, 2018
    @adamsmith Wouldn’t adding citation-number to the bibliography sort after author and date still lead to “a” and “b” being based on order in bibliography? I’m not sure I know how to get this correct.
  • adamsmith
    Yes, it's always be the order in the bibliography, but it'd be in the right order in the text. You can't have b before a in the bibliography (though if that's really what they want, it's a lot quicker to reverse that than fixing in-text citations)
  • bwiernik
    So @sb197 download this file (right-click and Save As):
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/citation-style-language/styles/master/apa.csl

    Open it in a text editor like TexEdit or Notepad (or better, a modern editor like Atom: https://atom.io/). Make these changes:
    1. After line 698, add:
    <key variable="citation-number"/>

    2. In line 682, delete:
    disambiguate-add-givenname="true"
    and
    givenname-disambiguation-rule="primary-name"


    If you want, you could start from APA 5th edition (https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/raw/master/apa-5th-edition.csl), which might be closer in other ways to 4th edition (though this style hasn't been updated in several years so it may have other bugs). In that case, the places to make the above changes would be line 307 and line 291.
  • sb197
    @bwiernik I downloaded and make changes accordingly in 698 and 682. What do I do after making changes? Do I export this file to Zotero? I also make changes by opening Zotero preferences and then to open style editor and press ok. There are no changes in the in-text version. Still the same, C comes first and then a and b or sometimes the other way around.
  • adamsmith
    See here for installing the new style: https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step#edit_the_style Note the part about changing title and id in the style -- that's important, otherwise your changes will keep getting reverted.
  • sb197
    @adamsmith and @bwiernik thank you for walking me through the coding. The previous in-text has been updated alphabetically except one. Why is this one exceptional? Any idea?
  • adamsmith
    Not really, no. Could be that you had manually edited it?
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