sorting the order of citations in the brackets manually

I have a question: I am using the Organization Studies Citation Style (which is close to APA 6). Usually the citation style organizes the citations in the brackets in alphabetical order. This is not an issue for me in general, but sometimes I would like to define the order differently. For instance when I cite several works of different authors, sometimes I cite a main source and then add other less relevant sources, usually with the prefix 'see also:' or I quote the source where a specific citation is originated from and then add the primary sources which this quote is basing itself on. It is a bit confusing if a bracket starts with 'see also:' and only afterwords refers to the author from whom the quote is originating.

Is there anyway to achieve that with the Organization Studies citation style or would I have to manipulate that in some way manually?

Thanks for your support!
  • In the Add Citation window, you can drag the blue bubbles for the items to rearrange them. If you manually rearrange them, automatic sorting will be disabled. If you want to restore the sorting, click the Z button on the left side of the window and check the “Keep citations sorted” box.
  • Thanks that worked!
  • edited November 6, 2020
    What is the CSL code responsible for this? I want to make an APA spinoff with this option disabled, but am having some trouble locating it in the CSL code.

    I see lots of `name-sort-as` in a bunch of macros and also a `sort` statement in the `citation` template but APA is so complex I don't dare to tinker with this.
  • You mean you want to disable the ability to custom sort? That's not possible.

    The sort statement in citation determines the sort order in the citation and it's not actually that complicated. The two date macros first determine that n.d. gets sorted before dates, and that before status (forthcoming, in press, etc.) and the second one just sorts by date. Then status gets sorted alphabetically, then title.
  • edited November 6, 2020
    Sorry, I wasn't clear (and should probably not have hijacked the thread). I rather want to disable the automatic sorting by author last name that APA has by default. I.e. I want cites in the order I enter them, or redrag them, and I don't want the style to mess with that. I think I found it: I just deleted the entire < sort > statement from the in-text citation block. But that may be a little rough?
  • Oh, that's actually super simple. Just delete the entire sort section under citation from <sort> to </sort>
  • Yes! Thanks for confirming. Somewhat surprisingly this information was kind of hard to find, perhaps because the search terms are so generic.
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