Item Type: Act

moniqabeatty
I read the information that says you should just pick the item type that is closest if you have an unusual item type. I picked "bill" as I assumed it would be similar to an act. However, when I have Zotero create an in-text citation, it produces the following: (Education and Training Act 2020, n.d.).
According to AUT, it's meant to simply be (Education and Training Act 2020): https://aut.ac.nz.libguides.com/APA7th/law
I know that if I delete the "n.d." from the in-text citation, it de-links that citation from Zotero which can be a bit of a pain later on.
Any other solutions? I also tried book, manuscript, and report to no avail
  • bwiernik
    The Zotero type you’re looking for is “Legislation”
  • mikanovd
    Not sure exactly what @bwiernik is referring to as I don't have "legislation" as an option, I assume they mean the "Statute" item type (at least in Zotero 7).

    APA uses the n.d. is the placeholder when there is no date available. Check the data of the item. Is the "date" field filled in? If not, the "n.d" will appear no matter what item type you select. Make sure you have a date in there (more precise is best, include day & month where available) and then refresh the citation to see if that fixes it.

    I'd keep the act under the Statute item type, so that your bibliography will be generated properly.

    Best of luck!
  • bwiernik
    Ah yes, Statute is the label
  • moniqabeatty
    @mikanovd No, I don't have anything listed in the date section, because I don't want a comma in between the date and the name. The name of the act already has the date in it. Otherwise, it reads (Education and Training Act 2020, 2020). I'm trying to find an item type that doesn't list the date in the in-text citation as shown in the link I previously posted.

    @bwiernik I tried "Legislation", and I'm having the same issues, unfortunately
  • damnation
    Use "Statute". (The zotero item type Statute is called "legislation" in CSL. Hence the mixup. Happens easily)
  • mikanovd
    edited 2 days ago
    @moniqabeatty You are citing an Act, which is synonymous with Statute - see your AUT link, first line under the header "Acts (Statutes)". The issue isn't the item type, but that your specific instructions deviate from typical APA style.

    APA's citation for statutes is typically formatted as (statute title, date). Your instruction from the AUT link above is that you should cite New Zealand statutes as (statute title) - or in other words, that the date should not be included. This is because the date is typically part of the statute title. To clarify, "Education and Training Act 2020" is the title of the statute. 2020 is part of the title.

    However, Zotero's APA is designed for the global user, where the date may not be part of the statute title, so the date must be included, resulting in the (statute title, date) format. Where Zotero has no date is in the metadata, it will put "n.d." for no date, as per APA rules.

    I'd recommend leaving the n.d. for now. When you are done your paper, create a copy of the document, unlink the ENTIRE thing from zotero, and then use the "find and replace" function in your word processor to remove all instances of n.d.
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