Cite while you write problem: arbitrary author display despite chosen style (APA 7th)

Hi there,

I have a problem I never encountered with endnote. Using the APA 7th output style and cite while you write, I realized some inconsistancies in the in-text citations. I.e., for some authors the first letter of their first name is displayed although this is not according to the APA style (C. Blease et al., 2007). Further, sometimes the first and second author followed by “et al.” is displayed - also against the APA style. Examples are: 

(Locher, Meier, et al., 2019) and (Blease, Colloca, et al., 2016) instead of (Locher et al., 2019) and (Blease et al., 2016).

I already changed the setting in the output style editor that 3 or more citations lead to the mentioning of only the first author followed by et al. But nothing changed.

I would be so glad if someone could help me.

Best regards,

Antje

The APA style has a few settings in it that can cause the issues you describe.

Please see the following KB on how to ensure that the initials do not appear for the in-text citations.

https://support.clarivate.com/Endnote/s/article/EndNote-Removing-author-name-initials-from-APA-Style?language=en_US

You may also want to look at the setting “Add more authors until the citation is unique”

In EndNote you can go to Edit > Output Styles > Open Style Manager > locate the style you are using > Click Edit > go to Ambiguous Citations under Citations > here uncheck the box Add more authors until the citation is unique > go To File > Save As > (EndNote will not allow you to change the existing style in EndNote but will always apply the change to a copy of the style) Click Save to save the changes to a copy of the style > close the style window.

Please feel free to contact Technical Support directly if you need additional help with editing the style.

1-800-336-4474 option 4 then 1

or
https://endnote.com/contact/