Why is first initial being inserted into in-text citation?

Violeta G. shared this question ago

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I have one author appearing in three references. This person has an initial being inserted in the in-text citation:

cb2dece689f8311f06987a70124ba8f9

I went to the database to change the name to look like it does in the others (full name from initial, for example), but it does not fix the in-text citation.

Here is the change I made and the two other times this author appears in my database:

9cc3bfd1299eb980d924b8cde050d7f1

debb12a8442ea40328b83893a8a19708

e100daa8764cdc5f5b299e20fc233d77

The thing is, I can get the initial to go away if I completely delete the first name and the first initial. But I am bound to have more references where the same author appears more than once and I already saw lower in the document where this is happening with another one. I don't want to keep changing all the names as I like to keep them the way they are imported from the library for consistency.

Also, the same name does not appear again anywhere besides for this author so it's not trying to identify one author with the same last name from another. I'm using APA 6th edition. They are also all different years, 2008, 2009, and 2012.

Update... I'm on my fifth reference where I have to delete the first name or initial from an author or else it keeps putting the first initial in in-text citation. This is going to cause further difficulty in the references because the initials will have to be added back manually. I hope someone can help with this.

Thanks for any help!

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Replies (1)

Damien R. ●

Hello,

When citing two authors with the same surname, first names are added for the purpose of distinction:

"If a reference list includes publications by two or more primary authors with the same surname, include the first author's initials in all text citations, even if the year of publication differs." (p. 176, Publication manual of the American Psychological Association 2009)

Please check whether you have correctly entered surnames and first names into the correct fields by right click the author's name and choosing Edit from the context menu.

Kind regards

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Violeta G. ●

I will, but if every single reference I have refers to the same person with that last name, the only difference in the first name being that sometimes it is spelled out (Dorothée) while the rest of the times it is abbreviated (D), shouldn't Citavi consider these references as referring to the same person? I could see if a different first name or initial was used in combination with that last name, but all either have Dorothée or D. I will go ahead and make them all say the same thing in last and first name, but I hope that won't be necessary often when importing citations from the library that sometimes have the first name written out while at other times abbreviated for the same author. Thanks for the reply!

Update: I see you can merge authors, and in this case I believe the difference was in the é: Some references had ee and some had ée.

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