problems with author initials when citing through word plugin

pilkwilk
hi there,
i'm on windows xp and using the harvard reference style with the plugin for office 2007. my problem is that sometimes the initials of the author are shown in the formatted citation and sometimes they are not.

for example,

one will look like this: (Qin et al. 2006)

and one like this:(D L Lewis et al. 1999)

in each case, the initials are present in zotero. i would like consistency, preferably with the initials not shown at all.

any ideas would be much appreciated.
thanks,
Joe
  • pilkwilk
    Additionally, sometimes the citation will not condense three or more authors into "et al." although normally it does.

    usually does this: (Wiberg et al. 1998)

    but sometimes does this: (Faller, Hühnerfuss, Konig & Ludwig 1991)

    i cant think what would stop it using et al. the reference format is the same in each case - i never change it from "harvard"

    Cheers
  • stephengourlay
    Have you checked all your entries for Lewis? I find if there are variations (e.g. D L Lewis; D Lewis; David L Lewis) these get treated as different authors when you cite what's the same author to you, and (logically) they get distinguished by including the initials.
  • pilkwilk
    Thanks Stephen, thats definately the case and for the most part solves my problem. however, if you have multiple Lewis' in your zotero library but not in your word document, it still distinguishes (not so logically) between them by adding the initials. i guess if thats the case i can just manually delete the initials.

    unfortunately, i still havent solved the problem in my second post.

    thanks a lot for your help
  • adamsmith
    pilkwilk - the style has an option enabled to disambiguate different multiple-author citations by adding last names.
    So if you have
    (Faller, Hühnerfuss, Konig & Ludwig 1991)
    as well as
    (Faller, Hühnerfuss, Konig & Bauer 1991)
    it doesn't contract both to Faller et al. 1991 but instead adds names.
    I think that's the only reason you wouldn't get et al. - so what you see has some connection to that.
    Also, no, Zotero doesn't add initials because of authors that aren't in the document - you can try that by adding one of your Lewis citations to an empty document. But it does do it for "hidden" authors (e.g. by et al).
  • pilkwilk
    thanks Adam, I get it now!

    sorry to keep adding questions on the end of this post but could you let me know how to show all the authors in the bibliography rather than an et al. if there are more than three authors. Or is this just a characteristic of the Harvard style and nothing I can do?
  • adamsmith
    yes, that's part of the style.
    Easy to fix, though
    http://www.zotero.org/support/csl_simple_edits

    just remove these two lines from the bibliography section of the style:
    <option name="et-al-min" value="4"/>
    <option name="et-al-use-first" value="1"/>
  • pilkwilk
    thanks adam, that worked a treat. i feel like a real programmer now!
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