Multiple chapters with same author in same book. How to get letters after year?

madsheidemann
Hi!

I am currently writing my master thesis and have encountered a minor problem with Zotero for word.
I am using a book with 12 chapters. 4 of these have the save author and I am using multiple of these.

My issue is, whenever I choose one of the 4 chapters by this author, I only get a year (2016) and not (2016a, 2016b, etc.).

Each of the chapters have their own pdf-file and for some reason zotero couldn't import the year so I added 2016 to all the files. Might this be the cause of the problem and how is it fixable?

Thanks a lot in advance for answers!
  • djross3
    edited November 25, 2019
    [My mistake. I misread the question. See the reply below.]
  • emilianoeheyns
    The way I read the OP, he does want disambiguation, but is not getting it. Maybe he has multiple PDFs (one for each chapter?) under a single item.
  • madsheidemann
    It's not under a single item; it's different items each PDF.
    Anyways I realized there's an easy fix; just change the date to 2016a, 2016b etc. for each of the chapters I end up using. Not sure if it will turn out right in the reference list though, might have to check up on that.
  • djross3
    edited November 25, 2019
    No, that will end up with weird ordering, and non-numeric dates aren't consistently supported. (You can use "status:" in the 'extra' field to add an alternative like 'forthcoming', but that's not appropriate here.)

    Which style are you using? Is disambiguation working for other items? Styles do this differently, so you might need to change that setting. But this generally works correctly and consistently in Zotero, so it will be possible to fix it.
  • emilianoeheyns
    edited November 25, 2019
    That should really not be necessary. Are you perhaps trying to get these keys to show up consistently in separate documents which all cite different subsets of these items?

    (edit: my comment was directed at @madsheidemann, our responses must have been posted at the exact same time)
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited November 26, 2019
    A few questions:

    Are each of the chapters included as separate records in your Zotero library?
    Are these records entered as book sections?
    Do your records include a (different) chapter title and page range?
    What style are you using?
    edit:
    Did you or a colleague develop/edit the style?
    Are the author names exactly the same for each chapter? (The names should be identical for disambiguation to work properly.)
  • emilianoeheyns
    Even if I'd have a 100% duplicate in my library, if I cited them both, they'd be disambiguated, right?
  • adamsmith
    Even if I'd have a 100% duplicate in my library, if I cited them both, they'd be disambiguated, right?
    yes, they certainly should be (and are for me)
  • madsheidemann
    @djross3
    Oh, I didn't realize that. I am using APA 6th edition and disambiguation is working for other items.

    @emilianoeheyns
    I'm not 100% sure I am following your question but I'm only using Zotero in a single Word-document. Sorry if I understood!

    @DWL-SDCA
    Each chapter is a single item.
    I don't know where to check if it's listed as a book section but looking for this I just realized that the only data that Zotero was able to import is year and author which might explain this issue?
    I am using APA 6th edition.
    I didn't edit the style and the author names are identical.
  • djross3
    It sounds like that should work then. Do you mind showing us what the bibliographic entries end up looking like? That would eliminate some of the guessing here.
  • DWL-SDCA
    If you change the Zotero item type to book section and fill in the missing fields for each chapter (book name, chapter title, pagination, book editor, chapter author(s), etc.); you might see an improvement when you refresh the document.

    That said, if you have records of each chapter with the identical author name (and you are certain that you didn't select the same Zotero record when citing), something curious is happening.
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