Upgrade StorageIncorrect in-text APA citations for multiple works
APA manual section 8.18 states that "to avoid ambiguity, when the in-text citations of multiple works with three or more others shorten to the same form, write out as many names as needed to distinguish the reference, and abbreviate the rest of the names to 'et al.' in every citation."
Say you have two citations:
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo (2010)
Alpha, Bravo, Foxtrot, Golf, and Hotel (2010)
These would become:
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, et al. (2010)
Alpha, Bravo, Foxtrot, et al. (2010)
Rather than both being:
Alpha et al. (2010)
This also applies to when only the final author is different, in which case you write out every name.
Hoping this makes sense! Does anyone have a way of getting around this, or do we think Zotero will address it in the future?
Say you have two citations:
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo (2010)
Alpha, Bravo, Foxtrot, Golf, and Hotel (2010)
These would become:
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, et al. (2010)
Alpha, Bravo, Foxtrot, et al. (2010)
Rather than both being:
Alpha et al. (2010)
This also applies to when only the final author is different, in which case you write out every name.
Hoping this makes sense! Does anyone have a way of getting around this, or do we think Zotero will address it in the future?
From the APA website, they say "When multiple references would shorten to the
same “et al.” abbreviation, disambiguate them
by spelling out as many author names as needed
to differentiate the citations and match them
to their reference list entry. These and other
guidelines (outlined in Sections 8.10–8.22) about
in-text citations are unchanged from the sixth
edition. Some details for in-text citations can be
found online as well."
That was found at https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/whats-new-7e-guide.pdf
Note it makes no reference to year. This applies even when the years are different.
This makes sense, because then the rules for et al. are in line with the rules for single author, same surname, but different person disambiguation: you give enough info to your reader so that they can understand it's NOT the same author.
I currently have the problem where two entirely different groups of authors both shorten to the same one person: Beard et al. and Zotero is treating them as, essentially, the same entire group author - even to the point of having them listed as (Beard et al., 2020, 2021) when they are in the same in-text citation.... but they are completely different entities, just share the same first author.
I am absolutely convinced Zotero has this coded incorrectly.... but I don't have enough understanding to start trying to mess around with this coding. I'm hoping someone out there agrees and can get this fixed!!!!! Please!!!!!
https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/professional-paper.docx
doesn't list the authors out for the et al. where they are two different sets of authors but the same first author.
I wish I had access to the actual manual to get a handle on why they would be so fastidious about single author disambiguation but not group authors.... the way they are handled inside the one set of brackets sends entirely the wrong message, in my opinion.
I haven't seen any guidance as to whether my original example from the previous post should at the very least be listed as Beard et al., 2020; Beard et al., 2021 to show that they are different Beard et al.s rather than the 'same' author writing in two different years. :(
However, on the APA blog, https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/whats-new-7e a random (not official APA person) for someone asking the same question answered that for the in-text references, since they are NOT the same author, they should be referenced how I've said above: Beard et al., 2020; Beard et al., 2021
Their reasoning was "My understanding is that they are two different groups of authors, so you cannot consider this as "two or more works by the same authors" and as such, I would treat them as separate works by different authors (see section 8.12 for more details)"
But Zotero doesn't do this. So, I still maintain that Zotero is coding incorrectly, somewhat.
1. 3+ authors reduced to “First et al.”
2. If authors of two different items have the same last name, add initials to both to disambiguate.
3. If the same author group has two items from the same year, add suffixes “a”, “b”, etc to disambiguate.
4. If two items with different author groups have the same cited form (“First et al.” with the same year), add additional authors to disambiguate.
5. Strictly speaking, the APA manual says that because “et al” means “and others” (“et alli”), it is always plural and shouldn’t be used to stand in for only one other person (eg, “Jones, Smith, & Navarro” and “Jones, Adams, & Wilson” should be spelled out in full, rather than being “Jones, Smith, et al.” and “Jones, Adams, et al.”). The APA manual is simply wrong in this case. “Et al” can be short for “et alli” (“and others”), but it can also be short for “et alius/alia/alium” (“and another”). So, there is nothing inherently plural about “et al”. The APA rule reflects a misunderstanding by the authors of the Latin phrase and its English usage. Notably, virtually no one abides by this rule, including APA journals. I have on numerous occasions had APA journal typesetters change correct-per-manual citations where I didn’t use “et al” to refer to a single person to instead use “et al”.
There are many many incorrect resources on APA style online. If you are looking at a resource that doesn’t indicate the above, it is incorrect.
Zotero implements all of the above rules except (5). (5) is unique to APA style, technically difficult to implement (not currently possible in CSL styles), based on flawed reasoning, and not widely followed even in official APA journals, so I suggest just ignoring it.