Inconsistent citations in body of paper

wade
Hi all,

I use Zotero 1.0.10 and am having a problem with inconsistencies in citations within the body of a paper I am writing. Sometimes the citation includes the authors' initials, and sometimes the citation doesn't. It is consistent for individual citations, but across citations it is not. For example, I will get both this (P. A Delcourt and H. R Delcourt 1981) and this (Dorken and Barrett 2004). Also, this (Douglas E Soltis et al. 2006) and, alternatively, this (Magni et al. 2005). Both are journal articles and I have looked at the citation for any inconsistencies to no avail. has anyone had a similar problem
  • adamsmith
    http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/given_name_disambiguation
  • wade
    That is useful information, and I do need to clean up some names in my bibliographic data base. However, I don't think that is what is going on here. I don't have any other citations by the Delcourts, yet the Delcourt and Delcourt citation includes initials. Also, I don't have any other citations by Dorken or Barrett. So I am not sure how to make them consistent since there is only one reference.

    Hope this helps to clarify the situation.
  • adamsmith
    it's that issue with close to 100% certainty - note that Zotero will disambiguate even if the authors occur in other constellations (e.g. Delcourts and Smith).

    The Dorken and Barret citation is correct though, isn't it?

    oh, there is one other option - if you have the authors inserted completely wrong - i.e. with "P. A Delcourt" as the last name. You can try that out by inserting the citations individually in a fresh document.
  • wade
    You are right. If I try to type "Delcourt" as the last name of the author, "Delcourt" without first and middle initials is offered as a possible auto completion. However, I can't find simply "Delcourt" in one of bibliographic references. Any hints on how to actually find out if this reference is there, or is it a holdover? For example, when I imported the citation, the names were Delcourt P. A and Delcourt H. R, without periods after the middle initial. After I added periods, Delcourt P. A and Delcourt H. R (again without periods) were still available as options.

    Thanks for any advice.
  • wade
    So I created two citations that were exactly the same, except the first and middle initials had periods in one instance and no periods in the next. When I inserted the two citations, only the last names appeared, for example

    (Zandermuffin and Miffordstein 2009) (Zandermuffin and Miffordstein 2009)

    Where there are two citations in Zotero but with different first names. So it doesn't appear to be inconsistencies within Zotero. Is it okay to modify a name in a citation manually in the body of a document, or will that mess up the field marker?
  • fbennett
    Where there are two citations in Zotero but with different first names.
    Not sure what you're referring to here. If Zotero is treating two author names as pointing at the same person, where the only difference between them is that one has a period after the initials and the other doesn't, that seems like correct behavior, no?
  • wade
    It is correct behavior, however as I mentioned in my first entry, some of my citations are not consistent. In the case that started this thread, the following had the initials added: (P. A Delcourt and H. R Delcourt 1981). Adam suggested that maybe there were alternate Delcourt entries, for example P.A. Delcourt rather than P. A Delcourt. However, in the case above the addition or deletion of a period doesn't lead to Zotero adding first and middle initials. So I am back to the place where I started. Why is Zotero adding the first and last initials in some entries but not others. I have checked the fields and they are correct. It is not the case that I entered "P. A. Delcourt" in the last name field.

    Has anyone else ever had this problem. There are several citations in my bibliography that perform this way, but I can't find anything the is amiss.

    Wade
  • adamsmith
    wade - I've troubleshooted this problem several dozen times on the forum. Every single time it turned out to be the disambiguation issue in one form of the other. Someone overlooking an author that was part of the "et als", overlooking a citation etc.
    Have you tried inserting the citation in a new (i.e. completely, no other Zotero citation) document? Does it appear with or without initials? If it appears without initials, it's the disambiguation issue. If it appears with initials, it's a problem in the way you input your data.
  • wade
    Hi Adam,

    I wasn't thinking properly when I posted this last night. Of course (Delcourt and Delcourt 1983) is going to include the first and middle initials; They are the same names.

    Sorry that you keep having to solve this for people over and over.

    Wade
  • adamsmith
    edited February 25, 2010
    duh - I should have caught that, too.
    That's really unfortunate, though, because disambiguation is obviously nonsense here - The next CSL version will fix this I'm pretty sure - but that will be a while - middle of the year with luck.
    Until then, two options: You can use "Show Editor" to modify the citation - the problem is that it will break the citation - it won't update anymore, neither for style changes nor for changes in the database.
    The other option is to search$replace right before sending it off - if you just change things in the citation manually in word, Zotero will overwrite your changes on every update (which is, among other things, everytime you open the document).
  • fbennett
    edited February 25, 2010
    Yikes, of course. I missed that too. In the new processor, it will depend on the style. With an all-names option, it will include the initials here. (That's useful in a way, because it tells you which of the two is the primary author.) With a primary-name option or with by-cite, you will get just the last names.
  • wade
    Thanks for the help, everyone.

    So is there a way to take your document with the citations and create a second copy that is "hard coded", by which I mean the field are eliminated and just the citation and the references remain? That way I could keep the original document and edit the second document manually.

    Wade
  • adamsmith
    I'm not sure for 1.0 - in the plugin for 2.0 there is a "remove field codes" button which does that for you.
    In 1.0 you might have to find out how to remove field codes in Word/Ooo generally speaking - I vaguely remember that's possible without too much effort, but forgot how.
  • wade
    Thanks Adam,

    If you highlight all the text in a copy of your document inside Word and select ctrl+shift+F9, this will remove all the field codes and you will be left with the text. Obviously you should avoid doing this on your original document.

    Have a great day,

    Wade
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