Inline citations

derekrp
I have an issue when dealing with inline citations. Some of them are inserted with the initials of the authors when they should not. I already checked the issues commonly discussed within this forum. I already discarded a disambiguation issue, also not related to the inclusion of the citation from "cited items" (when insert the citation in a new document, the issue persists). While reviewing my library I noticed something: If the reference was taken directly from the site of the publication (using the "Save to Zotero" plugin in the browser) , the reference is inserted correctly without the inititals of the authors. On the other hand, if the reference was added manually to the library (using the "New Item" button in the software) by typing the information, the initials are added. I have already tried creating manually the reference and copying exactly all of the information that is added automatically when adding the reference directly from the site, and the issue persists. Can someone clarify to me what is the fix for this issue?
  • adamsmith
    Can you take a screenshot of the right-hand panel in ZOtero for one of the items that's affected by this? I'd suspect incorrect data entry from what you're writing.
  • derekrp
    Thanks for the answer. I checked the data entry and you are right. Apparently the default setting for specifying the authors is "single field", which makes that if the author's last name and name are included by separating them with a comma, they are interpreted as a whole. I switched it to "two fields", and specify the last name and name in the corresponding fields, which fixed the problem. Thanks again!
  • adamsmith
    (It's not the default, it just remembers the last state of that field)
  • dklaskowski
    I've been having the same problem and thought to wait for the 64bit version 7 before asking for help. My misbehaving entries are all two field, so that is not my problem. What is strange is that when inserting the citation, the box where you add the references shows what should be pasted into the document and when you accept the list of references, the first initial shows up. Note: if there are two authors, only the first author has the initial added. This is a problem for only some entries. I've tried to delete them and rebuild them, edit them, check all the options, and the broken ones stay broken...
  • adamsmith
    @dklaskowski -- you're seeing https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/given_name_disambiguation
  • dklaskowski
    I understand what you are suggesting and for example, I have two books by Gary Chapman where one book had Gary and the other Gary D. as the author.

    I changed Gary D. to just Gary and updated the one reference where I list both books. I have G. Chapman in both books and the author is clearly just Gary.
  • adamsmith
    Assuming you're using APA (or Chicago) style, disambiguation applies to all first authors cited across the document, so any Gary Chapman reference. Hard to say more without details, but it's virtually certain this is the reason you're getting initials.
  • dklaskowski
    Many thanks for the quick responses!

    APA 7, and this is what I get pasted into my document: family of love language books (G. Chapman, 2015; G. Chapman & White, 2012). Both authors in Zotero are two field Chapman and Gary. I created a new document and it works fine, so my issue seems to be updating the references in the existing document.

    Note: as I made the new document, the citation box came up and slowly disappeared starting from the bottom. Like rolling up a window shade. You have to hit enter to finish the entry and then edit it again to add the next name and so on. Maybe I need to update the addon in LibreOffice?
  • adamsmith
    Might help to insert a bibliography for troubleshooting -- I'd guess you have another Chapman reference in there.

    (I've seen the Libre Office citation bar glitch, too -- I don't think that's related)
  • dklaskowski
    I inserted a bibliography in the existing and new documents. Everything looks good except for the hard returns before and after the Google books ID.

    Chapman, G. (2015). The 5 love languages: The secret to love that lasts. Northfield Publishing.
    Chapman, G., & White, P. (2012). The 5 languages of appreciation in the workplace: Empowering organizations by encouraging people. Moody Publishers.
    Google-Books-ID: YcIjdm_cFfEC

    Ciulla, J. B. (Ed.). (2014). Ethics, the heart of leadership (Third Edition). Praeger.

    NOTE: I deleted the references in the broken document and made new references. It looks good now... I was thinking that changes to the information in Zotero would somehow propogate into the document. For exampe: fix the capitalization in a title and have the change somehow show up automatically...
  • adamsmith
    I deleted the references in the broken document and made new references. It looks good now... I was thinking that changes to the information in Zotero would somehow propogate into the document.
    It generally would -- not sure why it didn't in this case (might have been an 'orphaned' reference no longer connected to Zotero -- reference can be created from metadata stored in the document)
  • dklaskowski
    Many thanks for your help!
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