generating two references

I am having a problem with my reference list and citations. I switched from Mendeley to Zotero and when placing my citation within my paper they are generating two references. For example, when I use the citation (Bass and Riggio, 2006), it comes up as (Bass and Riggio, 2006a) and (Bass and Riggio, 2006b). They are the same references and then the reference list populates it with the two references. How do I eliminate one of the references and citations?
  • You likely have one version you inserted from your Zotero library and one version that is a citation left over from when you were writing with Mendeley. Existing citations aren’t linked to your Zotero library and instead are formatted using the embedded data in the word document.

    Figure out which of the items is connected to your Zotero library (eg, place your cursor in the citation, open the Add/Edit Citation window, click on the blue bubble, and see if there is a Show in My Library button). Then, replace all of the citations with the other suffix with the correct citation (eg, by copy paste), then click the Refresh button in the Zotero tab.
  • Ok. I did that and there is only one document. I also imported my references from Mendeley so would that cause the information to actually be repeated?
  • Did you work in that document with Mendeley before? That'd cause duplication if you then insert a reference from Zotero.
  • Yes. I had issues with the add-in on Word so I switched to Zotero. What would be the best solution to get rid of the extra references and the "a and b" on the citations? Working on my dissertation and it is a template and it is very taxing and confusing.
  • How many of these do you have? Easiest way would be to delete & replace the existing Mendeley ones where they duplicate.
  • I have a total of ten citations within my document that have either a or b in them. I went to the desktop and found that one of the references had two documents connected to it. When I deleted it, it changed the citation and deleted the extra reference. When I tried it with another reference I found, it still kept the letter after the date. I tried refreshing the desktop app and the Zotero plug-in and it still kept the letter.
  • Just to be clear -- you'd be replacing references in the document, not in Zotero.
  • Yes. In my document, the reference list is showing two of the same references and in the citation there is a letter next to the date. For example: (Arnold et al.,2015a) and (Arnold et al., 2015b). And in the reference list there is the same reference twice.
  • Right, so what you'd do is
    1) Insert the reference from Zotero and check whether that becomes Arnold 2015a or Arnold 2015b
    2) Then in the document, go to all the non-Zotero cases (e.g. if Zotero inserts 2015b, you'd find all 2015a), delete them, and re-insert them with the Zotero one.
  • Ok. I have switched to all the citations that have the b in there. But the reference list is still showing two of the same references. How would I delete the "a" reference from my list?
  • Did you click the Refresh button in the Zotero tab in Word after replacing all the citations?
  • Yes.
    it seems like there are two citations. When I added the "b" and deleted the "a" it prompted me to choose the modification and when I did it should have deleted the "a" but it didn't.
  • Funny thing is that it is only on three references. All the other references have no letters.
  • I’m not following. You should not be manually typing “a” or “b” or editing text. You need to delete the whole citation, then re-insert or copy-paste the version you want to keep in the document.
  • When I add the "b" citation the letter still comes up. I have deleted the citation altogether and added the "b" citation but it still has the letter behind the year.
  • I am having a similar issue. I had to edit the titles of several articles in zotero to align with APA 7, sentence case. My zotero library has only one of the articles, but when I refresh the bibliography in my paper, two versions appear.
  • If two versions or the letters are appearing, there is still a citation to both versions in your document. It might help to select all the text in your document, then right-click on a citation and choose Toggle Field Codes to show the underlying data in case one of the citations was incompletely deleted.
  • I don't know how to tell if the data was incomplete or not. I don't know what I'm looking at.
  • Just that if a bunch of code appeared where there was no citation that you could see.

    Start by just searching for 2015a or 2015b (whichever you are trying to remove) and ensure that they are all gone.
  • I think the (2015a) was from Mendeley and the (2015b) is from Zotero. So when I find the "a," should I delete it from Zotero, or how would I do that? I found a few still in my paper.
  • See "Merging duplicates": https://www.zotero.org/support/duplicate_detection

    Better to merge them and then see if they disappear. If not, delete the one made via Mendeley from your document(!) and then reinsert.
  • I checked the duplicate list and there are no duplicates on the list. So I should just delete the whole document and then reinsert it back into Zotero.
  • I had this issue and have resolved it. Writing it for anyone who is experiencing a similar issue:

    In my case, this happened because I had one source in multiple Zotero libraries. I somehow made one citation refer to one library while the other referred to another library. This resulted in two version (e.g. 2020a and 2020b).

    To check this, press ALT+F9 to show markdown mode in your document. Watch out not to mess around with it. Find one instance of each citation (e.g. 2020a and 2020b) and check for the 'uri'. If you find them, open them in your browser (it's a link). It will show you where exactly each source is located in your Zotero database.

    Once you identify which of the two citations refers to the wrong database, close markdown mode (ALT+F9) and delete that citation(s). Make sure it's gone from your document. Then, in the Zotero ribbon menu, click 'Refresh'. If all went well, there should be no duplicate versions anymore and the years are updated (e.g. just '2020').

    Now you can add back your deleted citations, but when you do so, be sure to select not under the 'recently cited' heading but from the heading of the correct library instead. This way you know for sure you're getting the right one.

    Check again and don't forget to save your document. You might want to save a copy before doing this.
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