How can I cite Johnson et al (2008) said....

aatawfik
Hey Everyone,

I was wondering if you guys could help me when the years come after the name ie -

Johnson, Smith, Ferndanez (2008) said....

My workaround was clicking the "edit citations" or "suppress author" as a workaround to just leave the year, but I realized that I may still be messing up the APA style for when to do "et al" based on the number of authors. This is especially true as I move around sentence blocks in my paper. Any suggestions?

Andrew
  • fbennett
    edited July 13, 2009
    Haven't checked, but the citation processor should be aware of the author even though it's not being printed in the citation. As a side note, though, the APA rules are not precisely followed in the current processor and CSL style -- I think they require that only first authors get extra info added to them, but the processor puts all names into the disambiguation pool. (This will be fixed in future.)
  • mattw
    edited July 13, 2009
    So you're looking to be able to do "Johnson (2008)" instead of "(Johnson, 2008)" - is that right? If so, Edit Citation > View Editor will allow you to free-edit the citation to look how you want - the main reason I switched from Endnote to Zotero =)

    EDIT: I think you may known this already and I was indeed being a n00b, I'm running into a similar problem when editing citations where subsequent citations and text move-arounds are likely. Say I use the APA default of (Johnson, Smith & Broadbent, 2008) in a paragraph, then in a second paragraph cite the study again; I'll get (Johnson et al., 2008). Now, given that I leave the format as default, if I cut and paste the second paragraph above the first and click Zotero refresh, the citation order is corrected and the (new) first citation has all three names while the second citation has "et al."

    But, if I initially edit the citations - to, say, "Johnson, Smith and Broadbent (2008)" and "Johnson et al. (2008)" and then shift them around in the document and press refresh, the correct citation style order is not retained, and I can have "Johnson et al. (2008)" before "Johnson, Smith and Broadbent (2008)" appears.

    Does this make sense? Does anyone have any suggestions for ways around this?
  • mattw
    I'm actually noticing that I tend to use "Johnson (2008)" more often than "(Johnson, 2008)" - just one of those personal stylistic things. So it'd be great if I could change the default style in APA from '(author, year)' to 'author (year)' - which would at least result in less manual editing.

    Can anyone tell me how to edit the APA csl file to make this change? I've had a look over the code but can't figure it out, sad to say.
  • bdarcus
    @mattw: Don't change the style, because anything but a single ref (well, author) citation will break. Use suppress author, and add the author name manually (per OP).
  • fbennett
    Haven't tested, but in the citation area, you could try changing this: <layout prefix="(" suffix=")" delimiter="; ">
    <group delimiter=", ">
    <text macro="author-short"/>
    <text macro="issued-year"/>
    <text macro="citation-locator"/>
    </group>
    </layout>
    to this: <layout delimiter="; ">
    <group delimiter=" ">
    <text macro="author-short"/>
    <group prefix="(" suffix=")" delimiter=", ">
    <text macro="issued-year"/>
    <text macro="citation-locator"/>
    </group>
    </group>
    </layout>

    Something like that, anyway.
  • fbennett
    Also what Bruce just said. Multiple citations will come out looking very odd with the change above. But if you're curious about the effects it will produce, there's no harm in experimenting. It's all part of the learning curve. No warranty including warranty of fitness for a particular purpose except where prohibited by law, offer void in the fifty states and the Federated States of Micronesia.
  • mattw
    Chuckles! Thanks to both of you - the code works nicely and puts the parantheses where I wanted the little fellows, but admittedly it does mean that I end up with "Johnson & Barry (2008)" - whereas the friendly folks at the APA would like a nice full AND when the authors are outside brackets! That could be more difficult to change, I might imagine. All interesting stuff though!

    I think I might slide off the learning curve and go catch some of the Ashes before bed though, just presently =) Tis very late in Nu Zillund!
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