Q. How do I change from (Author, Date) to "Author says..." (date) for author-date in-text citation formats using Zotero?

When writing a paper, it may be necessary to change the appearance of an in-text citation. The standard in-text citation in Microsoft Word using citation styles like APA, Cell, Chicago, MLA, etc. looks like this:

If you want an author's name to appear within the text of the sentence and the parenthetical to list the year only, the in-text citation looks like this:

To make the "Author says... (date)"  format work:

1. Write a sentence using the author's name (for example, "According to Giesceke...")
2. Click on 'Add/Edit Citation'
3. Select your citation and double click on it to reveal an additional menu:

4. Check the box labeled 'Suppress Author' and that will omit the author's name.

For detailed information see our FAQ about adding and editing citations. Or you can go to Zotero's forum about suppressing authors and editing APA styles.

Part or all of this answer is adapted from Zotero wiki content distributed under various Creative Commons licenses. Additional content may have been adapted from the Zotero Research Guide by Jason Puckett and licensed by Georgia State University Library under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License.