in-text citation chronological not alphabetical order APA 7th

Hi, can you help with the following issue?
When citing various authors using APA 7th in-text citations appear in alphabetical order. They were sorted chronologically, before. I was using an adapted style of APA 6th (Technische Universität Dresden - Medizinische Fakultät). They updated their citation rules and we should use APA 7th now. Everything works perfectly and the reference list at the end of the document is fine (alphabetical order). But a chronological order for in-text citations is required. Do you know how to fix this?

before:
Hiermit testen wir die Zitiervorgabe mit der Einstellung TU Dresden – Medizinische Fakultät, basierend auf APA 6th (Berger, 1932; Amoore, 1967; Zis et al., 2015; Haehner et al., 2019).

now:
Hiermit testen wir die Einstellung APA 7th gemäß der Zitierrichtlinie der medizinischen Fakultät aus 07/2020 (Amoore, 1967; Berger, 1932; Haehner et al., 2019; Zis et al., 2015).

I'm using Zotero 5.0.91 in word on a macbookpro.
Thanks!!
  • I can make this style. Do you have a link to the style guidelines?
  • wow that's an offer I can't refuse - thank you for your help!
    the guideline is avaible only in german https://tu-dresden.de/med/mf/ressourcen/dateien/postgraduales/promotionen/Zitierrichtlinie_MF_APA7th_20200724_final.pdf
    but actually the guideline equals APA7th style completely. The only difference is how multiple (≥2) authors names are ordered in-text citations. They appear alphabetically in current APA7th and should be chronologically ordered in our faculty.
  • hi bwiernik, otherwise you could also share how I can make/change this style and I try myself?
  • I’ll try to get to this this morning
  • hey bwiernik,
    sorry for bothering - I still couldn't solve this problem and my facultaty isn't of help either. could you share how this could be solved?
    thanks a lot!
  • @bwiernik I am having a similar problem with American Sociological Association style. The reference sheet is fine (alphabetical), but I need the in-text citations to be chronological. Anyone have any advice?
  • Hi, I am also requested to present my references using APA 7th Edition. The journal asked to arrange multiple in-text citations in ascending date order. The repository has no option to do so in APA 7th Edition.
    I will appreciate any help.
    Thanks

  • The Zotero APA style follows the APA manual, which states that citations should first be sorted alphabetically by author, then chronologically after that. I would recommend responding to the journal with that information. If they are asking you to use APA 7, alphabetical is APA 7.

    If they insist, you would need to edit the style to remove this line:
    <key macro="author-bib" names-min="3" names-use-first="1"/>

    General style editing guidelines here: https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step
  • edited March 9, 2021
    Thanks @bwiernik for your quick answer.
    I have edited that line in the code of APA 7 style, now it looks like this:

    <<citation et-al-min="3" et-al-use-first="1" disambiguate-add-year-suffix="true" <disambiguate-add-names="true" disambiguate-add-givenname="true" <collapse="year" givenname-disambiguation-rule="primary-name">
    <<sort>
    <<key macro="date-sort-group"/>
    <<key macro="date-sort-date" sort="ascending"/>
    <<key variable="status"/>
    <</sort>

    However, it is still not working.
    (Barker et al., 2017; Hughes et al., 2018; Kramer et al., 2006; Mick et al., 2014; Nachtegaal et al., 2009)

    Maybe modifying the style in the style editor is not working or there are other part of the code that needs to be modified?

    Thanks again and sorry for insisting but I need to submit the manuscript and my supervisors are suggesting to change to another software to manage references. But I have everything in Zotero and I'd rather keep it.
  • You also need to change the style title and id as described on the page I linked to
  • And again, this is not APA style. I suggest you ask the journal to stop describing it as such if they are going to make journal-specific changes to the style guidelines
  • edited March 9, 2021
    If you want to post code to the forums, you need to wrap it in <code> </code> tags

  • Hi again @bwiernik

    I will definitely let them know that this is not the original APA 7 style. But I need to get this sorted out as soon as possible. I have saved the new style with a different title and id but it does not work. I also made sure that the name hasn't been used before, by saving the style with different names.

    I have also reopened Zotero and the word document and made sure that the new style is selected in my preferences. Nothing works.

    Is that the only line in the code that needs to be changed to get the in-text citation ordered chronologically? Is there anyone that has solved this problem before?

    Thanks again!
  • The line of code that sorts alphabetically is the one I gave you that you deleted. After deleting that and changing the style ID and title at the top of the style, you don’t need to make any other changes.

    Be sure that after editing you have saved and installed the new style. Also Be sure that you have switched to your edited style in your document.
  • Hi all,

    I have finally found the way to solve this problem. Instead of deleting that line, we need to change the order of them as follows:

    <sort>
    <key macro="date-sort-date" sort="ascending"/>
    <key macro="author-bib" names-min="3" names-use-first="1"/>
    <key macro="date-sort-group"/>
    <key variable="status"/>
    <sort>

    This works perfectly!!
    Thanks.
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