Et Al. not appearing for in-text citations when using APA 7th

bradevans
I'm trying to use Zotero to add in-text citations. (Using desktop word with Zotero plugin on a Mac). When I add the in-text citation using the Zotro plugin, it appears, but it lists every author instead of (Author1, et al., year). I've verified that APA is selected for the style in Zotero & Word. What is wrong?
  • enozkan
    It is irrelevant if it is selected in Zotero Preferences. The Style Manager under Cite in Zotero Preferences is only for installing styles. Not choosing them for any document.

    You select a style for your document in Word in the Document Preferences under the Zotero tab (not under the References tab). If you are selecting simply "APA", you are in the wrong place.

    Make sure you follow Zotero's instructions for this: https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_usage

    Sometimes, it helps to change the style to something else and back. Also, make sure your citations are active (do you see them in the red pop-up window when you click Add/Edit Citation while you are on a citation).
  • adamsmith
    I'd also like to see a couple of examples of the above doesn't clarify
  • bradevans
    Hi--I've pulled a few citations that aren't working as expected. I've created a public group with the trouble citations and can invite anyone, but can't find a way to get a link to the Group folder to post here. I'd appreciate any help. I've searched and read through the documentation. I can't see why it's putting all authors and not et al. in the citation. Yes, it's set to APA 7 everywhere.
  • enozkan
    Any chance those items are entered into Zotero where all authors are listed as one?

    As adamsmith said, it would help to copy/paste exactly how the citation appears in Word for a few of those here.
  • bradevans
    This is the citation it generates in the red pop-up box:
    (An, Y., Kaplan-Rakowski, R., Yang, J., Conan, J., Kinard, W., & Daughrity, L., 2021)

    This is what it should be: (An et al., 2021).

    This is what's in the author field which was auto-generated: An, Y., Kaplan-Rakowski, R., Yang, J., Conan, J., Kinard, W., & Daughrity, L.

    How can I tell if the authors are listed as one?

    I sincerely appreciate your help. I'm completely new to Zotero, as I've always done all my citations by hand.
  • DWL-SDCA
    In Zotero, look at the author field for that record. Is each author listed in separate individual lines or are all authors included in a single line?
  • bradevans
    They're on a single line. They imported that way. So I need to go through each citation, click the + by the author and add them individually?
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited October 16, 2023
    When you look at your Zotero record for that journal article do you see a listing of the authors like this:

    An, Yuno
    Kaplan-Rakowski, Regina
    Yang, Junhe
    Conan, Jenna
    Kinard, Widad
    Daughrity, Leanne

    If not, that is the problem. Each author should be on a separate line. If all authors are on one author field line Zotero will recognize that as a single name.

    Tell us how / where you imported the article.I hope that you didn't hand-enter the article metadata. If you did hand enter, copy and paste the following DOI into the "magic wand" and download the article metadata that way.

    10.1007/s11423-021-10008-5

    There should be a Zotero icon near the URL field in your web browser. That icon will change depending upon the type of the thing you wish to import. For an illustration visit: https://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide
    and scroll down to "capturing items" (it is about halfway down the page).
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited October 16, 2023
    Some online bibliographic databases mistakenly put all authors in a single field. You want to use a different database -- or (much) better you want to capture the metadata directly from the publishers' journal websites.

    For example, you will see the Zotero import-article icon by visiting the publisher at:

    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-10008-5

    Google Scholar will sometimes export article metadata with all authors in a single line. It is always better to follow the GS link to the publishers' websites and capture the metadata from there.

    I believe that sometimes certain ProQuest social science databases also do this. The ERIC database sometimes has this problem.
  • enozkan
    For this item, Google Scholar, Springer/Journal Website, and Pubmed all have correct data. Or at least, the data is correct when you use the Zotero translator (that's the Zotero button you have in your browser) on those websites. So, I am curious how you imported it.

    If this citation (and the other broken ones) is from one import from one bad source, you may be able to sort your library in Zotero by Date Added (right-click on the column headers where Title is), and fix them manually. If there are too many to fix by hand, you may be able to export their IDs (like DOI), and use Zotero's Add Item by Identifier function to get fresh, higher-quality data into Zotero, and delete or merge with the original items.
  • bradevans
    Thanks everyone. I'm helping a friend and when they imported the citations, their method put all the authors on one field. Using the link kindly provided by DWL - SDCA made the citation import correct and create the anticipated et al. in-text citation. Thank you so much! I'll go back and reimport the citation information for the other sources.
  • stefanny86
    @DWL-SDCA October 16, 2023 Thank you! your solution worked great!
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