APA Citations

I've tried using the APA 6th edition citation style but all of the examples I've tried come up incorrect, which really defeats the purpose of utilizing zotero in word. Any suggestions on if this problem will get fixed or the best way to go about including citations in word that are accurate (besides typing them out myself which will be my next step if no one has thoughts)?
  • What are some examples, and where did you import them from?

    No matter what tool you use, you'll still need to check the imported data to make sure it's correct, but Zotero will import high-quality metadata from most sites. When the data is correct in Zotero, it should generate very accurate citations. If you're getting a "Web Page" item in Zotero instead of, say, a "Journal Article" item, there's a problem with either your installation or the site you're importing from.
  • I've tried importing from a variety of places including the web, WorldCat, and library databases. My biggest issue is that most of the citations end up formatted as: ("CITATION INFO") and I can't seem to figure out where the quotation marks are coming from. Any suggestions?
  • It is also adding the title of the webpage after "Retrieved from" which is incorrect. Example below:

    Larson, D. (n.d.). Collection Description. Retrieved from American Prison Writing Archive website: http://apw.dhinitiative.org/
  • No, this is correct. See Examples 33 and 34 in the APA manual. The examples APA gives are somewhat inconsistent regarding whether the website title is given or not across examples in the manual, the 2012 update, and examples on the APA style blog. Given that, the CSL style is designed to provide the most accurate and least ambiguous form of the possible citation by including the website title or publisher if provided. In particular for the example you give where a document is retrieved from an institutional repository or website (like the American Prison Writing Archive), all sources are clear that the name of the institution should be included as is done above.
  • Example 33 is for an authored report, and example 34 is for a report from institutional archive, neither of which apply to the citation I'm making which is for a website.
  • APA really doesn't make a distinction here between a "Report" and a "Website". It would regard both as being grey literature. If anything, the APA manual would say that you shouldn't cite a website like that in the references at all and simply provide the URL in text.

    The 2012 APA Guide to Electronic References specifies that the website name should be included after "Retrieved from" if such information is not clear from the URL. As Zotero has no idea whether or not this is the case, it provides the website name in the reference if one is provided to ensure maximal clarity for all references. If you really don't want the website title to appear, remove it from your item data in your Zotero library. In this case, I think that including "American Prison Writing Archive" provides very helpful clarity for readers as to the provenance and authority of the page you are referring to, as well as helpful clarity as to what the "collection description" is a description of.
  • My biggest issue is that most of the citations end up formatted as: ("CITATION INFO")
    Do you haven a couple of examples? Quotation marks are used in APA style around short titles for in-text citations of items without authors (see the "All 33 miners freed" example here https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/11/how-to-cite-something-you-found-on-a-website-in-apa-style.html ) but I would think that would very rarely be "most of the citations", so this sounds like something is going wrong, possible on import.
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