Offer explicit option to remove initials from in-text citations

Feature requests
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#1

I read in another support post that one of the most common issues people face is trying to remove initials from in-text citations. I understand that initials are inserted when two authors have the same last name. This, however, is a strange convention, given that one can use the year of publishing to find the correct citation. (Even when the year is the same, they can be distinguished using 1998a vs 1998b). I have never seen this convention used in a published article or recommended in a citation manual, though perhaps some do. In any case, my thesis advisor does not like it, which means I will need to remove them manually every time I submit a draft, which undermines the convenience of using a citation manager.

All this can be solved rather simply: just give us a toggle button to remove initials in the Citation Style dialogue box, as you already do for “Always include DOIs and URLs.” Sincere thanks. I love every other aspect of this software.

#2

Thanks for the feedback, @Tristan_Cleveland. I believe the use of initials is official in APA style at least - here’s an old blog post to that effect; the rule is still valid for the recent 7th edition. My understanding is that initials are added to distinguish between different authors with the same surname, and letter suffixes are reserved for works from the same author on the same year ( both meant to aid readers in locating items quickly in the reference list).

As this applies for APA, I imagine each style handles disambiguation somewhat similarly. I guess official citation guidelines with this level of specificity are not necessarily easy to find online, but let me know which style you’re using and perhaps I can find some info.

#3

I have the same problem. And even though the use of initials is in the APA 7th edition rules, I have to remove them manually because my advisors requested that and wouldn’t be convinced to keep them.

Is there any easier solution?
I use APA as I mentioned before

#4

Welcome to our forum, @Islam_Karem! A potential workaround here would be customizing the APA style file via the CSL Editor to remove disambiguation rules, or finding/requesting an existing version of the .csl style file that does this.

#5

Thank you for that tip @vicente! I had the same problem with my advisor requesting all names and initials be removed from in-text citations, and I was able to very easily save a new version of the .csl file with the add-givenname disambiguation set to false. I’m very relieved not to have to manually update my citations anymore.

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