Sonny Software

When I put in citations by authors with same surname the in-text citations end up with initials after the surname e.g. Bookends generates:

Writing XXX (Clark, Ascetic Piety 22) and further YYY (Clark, EA 33) and also ZZZ (Clark, G 44)

whereas the inital should go before surname according to the MLA style guide, so it should be something like?:

Writing XXX (E. Clark, Ascetic Piety 22) and further YYY (E. Clark, Reading Renunciation 33) and also ZZZ (G. Clark 44)

forename initial does go first, if used, (I'm not sure if the initial is needed when short title is unique)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02/
Citing Authors with Same Last Names
Sometimes more information is necessary to identify the source from which a quotation is taken. For instance, if two or more authors have the same last name, provide both authors' first initials (or even the authors' full name if different authors share initials) in your citation. For example:
Although some medical ethicists claim that cloning will lead to designer children (R. Miller 12), others note that the advantages for medical research outweigh this consideration (A. Miller 46).

regards,
John

P.S. I notice in Formats Manager that within "MLA Citations" the "custom citations format" is set to ABNT
have my settings gone wrong?

Are you using MLA to scan (correct) or MLA Citations to scan (incorrect)?

Jon
Sonny Software

> Are you using MLA to scan (correct)

Yes

Please try opening the 'MLA Citations' format and change the first author order from Doe, John to John Doe. Does that result in the initials issue? If not, let me know and I'll dig into it more deeply and see what's going on.

Jon
Sonny Software

I tested my suggested solution and it works. Please edit the MLA Citations format accordingly. I'll adjust the format for the next update.

Jon
Sonny Software

I have now tried that, but it has got worse, now I just get:

Writing XXX (Clark 22) and further YYY (Clark 33) and also ZZZ (Clark 44)

I tried different permutations of "For repeated citations" checkbox turned on or off

A couple times I had a "MLA Citations" does not exist message but I think it was just because it was open in Formats Manager, when I closed it before running a Mellel citations build that was ok.

So, please help as all disambiguation by short titles or initials has gone

regards,
John

I've uploaded the modified MLA Citations format to the ftp site. Either get it from there or write to me and I'll send it to you. If you have any more issues please contact me for tech support off-forum.

Jon
Sonny Software

Thanks, I have downloaded it from FTP.