Question about APA citations (disambiguation)

cristobalcastrog
Hi,

I am encountering an issue with the formatting of these references:

Teece, D., Peteraf, M., & Leih, S. (2016)
Teece, D., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997)

When I insert the citations, they appear as follows: (Teece et al., 1997, 2016), instead of the correct format: (Teece, Peteraf et al., 2016; Teece, Pisano et al., 1997), as prescribed by APA guidelines:

"…when the in-text citations of multiple works with three or more authors shorten to the same form, write out as many names as needed to distinguish the references, and abbreviate the rest of the names to 'et al.' in every citation." (APA Style)

Source: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/basic-principles/same-year-first-author

Has there been a recent change in this rule? Is Zotero following the correct format? I am confused by this discrepancy. Or, Did I interpret the rule incorrectly?

In advance, thank you.
  • poettli
    edited March 22, 2024
    Not the same publication year. The first line of the linked page (emphasis mine):
    Sometimes multiple works with three or more authors and the same publication year shorten to the same in-text citation form, which creates ambiguity.
  • bwiernik
    Yes, in 7th edition, names are only added when the citation would otherwise be identical (so same first author and year). Note that initials are added whenever there are multiple authors with the same last name.
  • cristobalcastrog
    I understand about the years, but does it not matter if the authors are different? Because if I see the citation (Teece et al., 1997, 2016), it would seem at first glance that it was authored by the same individuals, when in fact it is not. Should it still be left that way? Thank you
  • bwiernik
    Rules 8.18, 8.19, and 8.20 address citation disambiguation.

    8.18 says that for different author lists in the same year, add names because otherwise the citations would be identical. If the author lists differ but are in different years, the citations are not identical and so it is not ambiguous which citation is referred to.

    8.19 says that for the same author lists in the same year, add letters following the year to disambiguate.

    8.20 says that for authors with the same surname, add initials to disambiguate.

    There is no special rules for handling different author lists with the same first author in different years. Those are just cited as normal.
  • cristobalcastrog
    I see. I'll follow what is indicated in the rules. Thank you very much.
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