Upgrade StorageStyle error: APA 7th to ignore initial A, An, The in titles when sorting references
On occasion, APA sorts references in title alphabetical order, ignoring any initial A, An or The in the title. This occurs when there is no author at all or when multiple references have the same author and date elements. See the the Publication Manual (pp. 305–306, Sections 9.47, 9.49).
The APA 7th citation style at present (January 2025 version) does not ignore these initial articles when sorting. For example, Zotero sorts the references below as follows (I’ve added numbering artificially to make it clearer as I can’t work out how to do hanging indents):
1. A celebration of Dick Frizzell’s iconic tiki. (2017, November 21). Viva. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rarara
2. Caterpillars biodegrade plastic bags. (2017, June). Chemical Engineering Progress, 113(6), 11.
3. Ministry of Education–Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga. (n.d.-a). A new model for delivering learning support. https://www.education.govt.nz/rarara
4. Ministry of Education–Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga. (n.d.-b). Developing an inclusive classroom culture. Inclusive Education. https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/rarara
5. The Epic of Gilgamesh (M. G. Kovacs, Trans.). (1998). Academy of Ancient Texts. http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/ (Original work published ca. 2500–2750 B.C.E.)
Instead, the correct order should be:
1. Caterpillars biodegrade plastic bags. (2017, June). Chemical Engineering Progress, 113(6), 11.
2. A celebration of Dick Frizzell’s iconic tiki. (2017, November 21). Viva. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rarara
3. The Epic of Gilgamesh (M. G. Kovacs, Trans.). (1998). Academy of Ancient Texts. http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/ (Original work published ca. 2500–2750 B.C.E.)
4. Ministry of Education–Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga. (n.d.-b). Developing an inclusive classroom culture. Inclusive Education. https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/rarara
5. Ministry of Education–Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga. (n.d.-a). A new model for delivering learning support. https://www.education.govt.nz/rarara
This problem occurs surprisingly often: for undergraduate students when using undated webpages and for researchers when citing prolific research groups. All of the sources above have been referenced by people here – admittedly, not all in the same piece of work!
And the problem has also been known about for some time – I found old posts https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/814/alphabetize-records-without-a-or-the and https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/498597 – and it is something that even EndNote has long handled correctly (and perhaps always has).
Is there any chance of a solution – at least for English-language styles such as APA 7th in which it is just an initial A, An or The in the title that should be ignored?
The APA 7th citation style at present (January 2025 version) does not ignore these initial articles when sorting. For example, Zotero sorts the references below as follows (I’ve added numbering artificially to make it clearer as I can’t work out how to do hanging indents):
1. A celebration of Dick Frizzell’s iconic tiki. (2017, November 21). Viva. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rarara
2. Caterpillars biodegrade plastic bags. (2017, June). Chemical Engineering Progress, 113(6), 11.
3. Ministry of Education–Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga. (n.d.-a). A new model for delivering learning support. https://www.education.govt.nz/rarara
4. Ministry of Education–Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga. (n.d.-b). Developing an inclusive classroom culture. Inclusive Education. https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/rarara
5. The Epic of Gilgamesh (M. G. Kovacs, Trans.). (1998). Academy of Ancient Texts. http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/ (Original work published ca. 2500–2750 B.C.E.)
Instead, the correct order should be:
1. Caterpillars biodegrade plastic bags. (2017, June). Chemical Engineering Progress, 113(6), 11.
2. A celebration of Dick Frizzell’s iconic tiki. (2017, November 21). Viva. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rarara
3. The Epic of Gilgamesh (M. G. Kovacs, Trans.). (1998). Academy of Ancient Texts. http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/ (Original work published ca. 2500–2750 B.C.E.)
4. Ministry of Education–Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga. (n.d.-b). Developing an inclusive classroom culture. Inclusive Education. https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/rarara
5. Ministry of Education–Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga. (n.d.-a). A new model for delivering learning support. https://www.education.govt.nz/rarara
This problem occurs surprisingly often: for undergraduate students when using undated webpages and for researchers when citing prolific research groups. All of the sources above have been referenced by people here – admittedly, not all in the same piece of work!
And the problem has also been known about for some time – I found old posts https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/814/alphabetize-records-without-a-or-the and https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/498597 – and it is something that even EndNote has long handled correctly (and perhaps always has).
Is there any chance of a solution – at least for English-language styles such as APA 7th in which it is just an initial A, An or The in the title that should be ignored?
Looking at the plugin documentation, though, it seems to involve quite a bit of faffing around for something that should be basic Zotero functionality – especially for major styles such as APA, Chicago and MLA.
Any chance this can be fixed by default and so enabled for normal Zotero users?
It’s expecting every student and researcher to do it that is the real issue, however, not just for myself alone. I do think it should be normal behaviour out of the box for something so basic.