Formatting reference citations properly

Question

I am writing a paper in APA style formating and can not get my multiple author citations to appear as they should in the text. I need it to be 'Smith etal, 2000' but all I get is Smith 2000. Is there a way for my citation manager to automatically fix this or do I have to go and manually rewrite everything?

Answer 1

I am writing a paper in APA style formating and can not get my multiple author citations to appear as they should in the text. I need it to be 'Smith etal, 2000' but all I get is Smith 2000. Is there a way for my citation manager to automatically fix this or do I have to go and manually rewrite everything?

The algorithm used by APA.xsl in Word 2007 for in-text citations is:

• less than 7 authors: show all.
• 7 or more authors, only show the first one followed by et al.

So if you only see one author, something is wrong with your source. It could be an input error. You can easily verify this.

Right click on your in-text citation and choose 'Edit Source'. Then click the 'Edit' button to the right of the Author textbox. In the dialog that pops up, each of your authors should be on a separate line in the lower box. If they are all on the same line, then you made a mistake inputting them.

Answer 2

Refer http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-word/reference-citationbibliography-style/db5f636c-99d4-483f-9e96-5e7a280bd679

As per that thread, Microsoft Office citation styles have built-in issues.

You may also refer http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/field-codes-citation-field-HA010215707.aspx to edit the fied codes manually.