Same year, same authors, different publication (APA 7th edition)

KPMularczyk
Hello,

I am using the APA 7th edition style for my in-text citations in Word, and am noticing that the letters do not come up for the year where last names and years are the same. For example, if I have three different Smith references for 2020, they will come up as (Smith, 2020, 2020, 2020), instead of (Smith, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c).

Can someone please help me figure out how I can update this? It's a time pressing matter and I really don't want to manually change the in-text citations.

Thanks!
  • bwiernik
    It definitely should add the letters and does for me.

    A few steps to try:
    1) Restart Word and Zotero, then click the Refresh button in the Zotero tab in Word.
    2) Are the citations underlined with a dotted line? If so, you have automatic updating of your citations turned off. Re-enable it by opening Document Preferences from the Zotero tab in Word and checking the box.
  • KPMularczyk
    Hi bwiernik,

    Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. You were right - restarting Word and Zotero did the trick for the letters, but I still cant do the automatic updates.

    This must be because I am modifying the in-text citations, as sometimes the author could be replaced with an acronym (but needs to be spelled out fully in Zotero of course, so the reference list is correct).

    For example, if the first time I reference a government report, it could be John Howard Society, 2020), but in all later in-text citations, I would use the acronym (JHS, 2020). Therefore, since I have so many modifications for these instances, when I hit refresh the letters wont match up.

    None of my citations are underlined though.
  • bwiernik
    Generally, you should avoid manually editing citations, which will prevent automatic updates as you note.

    When you want to use an abbreviated author name, I recommend that you just use the abbreviation as the author and enter the full organization name as the publisher. This isn't strictly APA style, but it will include all of the relevant information and every reader will understand. APA journals often don't even say anything about this (trust me on this one).
  • KPMularczyk
    Hi bwiernik,

    That's a great idea. I think as well, upon completing the whole document and being sure about the references, people can go to the reference list and write out the abbreviation. It is way faster than doing it the other way around (which is what I was doing). Thanks again for your help
  • reneelipka
    Hey there,

    I have the same problem but it won't solve with closing and reopening both word and zotero. The references are also not underlined with a red dotted line.

    The three references all have the same year and first author, usually the intext citations should appear like this (Langer, 2021a; Langer 2021b; Langer 2021c), instead, it appears as: (Langer, Jentsen et al. 2021; Langer, Wolf et al. 2021, Langer, Hagedorn et al. 2021)

    Any ideas on how I could fix it?
  • adamsmith
    That's correct APA style, though -- as you sure you want to fix it?
  • bwiernik
    APA style only adds a, b, c, etc. when the whole author groups are the same. When the second or later authors differ, extra names are added to disambiguate first. Zotero is producing correct APA style.
  • thebittenpeach
    Hello, would anyone here please help me too?
    I have a problem with adding letters after whole date is inserted, For example: in Zotero, I add the whole date (11.02.2022a) but the "a" won't show in the text. Restarting doesn't help.
    Sure, I could just type 2022a but that would be incorrect in APA7 as I am citing a web page.
    Does anyone has any idea? I'm getting frustrated.
  • adamsmith
    You shouldn't write any letters -- Zotero adds those automatically. Could we see the in text citations in context?
  • AbeJellinek
    @thebittenpeach: What are you trying to accomplish? You don't need to (and can't) add letters in the date field manually. If two items appear the same in in-text citations, a/b/c/etc. will be inserted after the year automatically.
  • thebittenpeach
    edited February 12, 2022
    @adamsmith @AbeJellinek I am so sorry! I must have been too tired while writing this because then, after I posted here, the letters became to appear automatically. It's my bad. Sorry! And thank you for your patience! Resolved!
  • josq
    I am having the same issue as AbeJellinek. I have two papers w/ the same first author and date, but different second author. It's set to APA7, but Zotero is naming them Pauker, Meyers, et al., 2018 & Pauker, Carpinella, et al., 2018 instead of using the a/b style. I've already tried to Refresh in Word from the Zotero menu. Any other ideas? Thank you!
  • adamsmith
    See above. Adding the second author is correct APA style. Adding a,b is not.
  • jamesdiiaz
    Hello, I am facing the same problem (using APA 7th edition) and restarting Word and Zotero didnt do it for me.

    I have four sources of the same author, two of them have been published in the same year (2012). When pasting the sources in Word, the following is generated:

    Smith et al., 2008, 2010, 2012, 2012

    Isnt it supposed to be 2012a and 2012b to differentiate between both?
  • adamsmith
    Yes, it should. How exactly are you pasting them in Word, though?
  • jamesdiiaz
    I am using the Zotero Function in Word by clicking Zotero --> Add/Edit Citation
  • adamsmith
    Try
    1) clicking the Refresh button in the Zotero ribbon in Word, and if that doesn't work
    2) Try switching to a different style and back.
  • jamesdiiaz
    That didnt work for me :(
  • jamesdiiaz
    edited November 18, 2024
    it still doesnt work, but it does work for other sources lol. does anybody have any suggested solutions?

    info: the co-authors of the sources differ, does it have to do anything with that?
  • adamsmith
    If they have different co-authors, they shouldn't collapse and don't for me. For example, if I have three citations with the same year and same first author, but one of them has a different second authors, this is what APA wants and what I get:
    (Bachtler, Jones, et al., 2019a, 2019b; Bachtler, Martins, et al., 2019)

    Have you tested with the same sources in a new document?
  • jamesdiiaz
    Thats weird, when I try it in a new document, I get

    .... (Bachtler, Jones et al. 2012; Bachtler, Martins et al. 2012).

    I mean it still does not work with the a and b citation. But in comparison to before, the co-authors are written out, previously it was only written like:

    (Jones et al. 2012; Jones et al. 2012)

    That is still wrong according to APA, right :/?
  • adamsmith
    No, the first one is correct APA. No a,b for different author groups. Try deleting and reinserting the citation?
  • jamesdiiaz
    I dont know why, but it worked now. I got the citation like this:

    (Jones et al. 2012; Jones et al. 2012)

    One more question though:
    If I want to say "Bachtler et al. (2012) claim that ...",
    do I also have to write that as
    "Bachtler, Jones et al. 2012 claim that ...."? to be correct as specified in APA?
  • adamsmith
    yes -- that's one of the reasons that having something fancier than the current omit author option for narrative citations would be nice.
  • jamesdiiaz
    exactly lol. thank you!
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