When using Mendeley for APA 7th ed. citations, how do I add the [Description] of media (aka, [Video] on YouTube) after the title without italics?

30 July 2023 3 368 Report

Hi, all!

I am curious if there is a way in Mendeley to have the 'description' of the media referenced in the bibliography in brackets, following the title, without using italics, while still before the period ending the 'title element.' For example, in the reference examples area of the 7th edition of APA, 88. TED Talk (American Psychological Association, 2020, p. 343) shows (please excuse the missing hanging indents):

TED. (2012, March 16). Brene Brown: Listening to shame [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0

The example I am trying to format currently under the 'web page' type in Mendeley currently lists the reference page as follows:

Current Listing

TEDx Talks. (2015, April 2). Learning styles & the importance of critical self-reflection | Tesia Marshik | TEDxUWLaCrosse [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855Now8h5Rs

However, the correct listing for this example on the reference page should be with [Video] in a regular font style (rather than italicized), as shown below:

Corrected Listing

TEDx Talks. (2015, April 2). Learning styles & the importance of critical self-reflection | Tesia Marshik | TEDxUWLaCrosse [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855Now8h5Rs

How the Current Mendeley Citation is Entered

In the current listing example, I entered the description - [Video] - at the end of the title since it needs to be before the period "in the title element of the reference" (American Psychological Association, 2020, p. 342). However, in Mendeley, this puts the description improperly in italics. I have yet to find an area where we can add the media description for a web page.

Solutions I have Tested

I have begun looking at changing the 'type' I used to classify the work to see if this could solve the issue. However, none seemed to format it correctly after using generic, television broadcast, and film. Is there something I have yet to try that you believe may work? Does Mendeley have a little-known way to format something differently in the 'title element' (i.e., similar to how on some sites, if you enter * before and after your entry, it makes it bold)?

Do you have any other ideas or suggestions? I would love to hear them and give them a try. If unable to find a solution, I may have to manually adjust the bibliography before submissions and/or whenever the document has been refreshed.

Thank you for reading this in-depth description of my current Mendeley challenge. I look forward to hearing your suggestions, and thank you for your time!

With gratitude and best wishes always,

Jenn Serra

Graduate student, Organizational Change Leadership

Western Michigan University

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

TED. (2012, March 16). Listening to shame | Brene Brown [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0

TEDx Talks. (2015, April 2). Learning styles & the importance of critical self-reflection | Tesia Marshik | TEDxUWLaCrosse [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855Now8h5Rs

Hsin-Yuan Chen

Hi,

To temporarily solve APA 7th edition citation formatting in Mendeley:

Insert citation via Mendeley's plugin in MS Word.

Locate citation in your document.

Manually unitalicise [Video].

This workaround should be applied after all citation edits, as Mendeley's plugin updates will reset manual changes.

Hope this helps.

Jenn C Serra

Thanks, Hsin-Yuan Chen!

I also emailed the library at my college with the question and one of the librarians that teaches Mendeley to students got back to me. The suggestion also included something that avoids the resets of changes. Since I often refresh Mendeley, which reverses changes, I opted to do this after the final version of my recent paper was ready. Below is the response with his suggestions and I italicized and bolded what I ended up doing myself that worked well:

Dear Jenn,

The only way to do this in Mendeley is to either add this information to the title Field in the Mendeley record for the reference. Then Mendeley can add it to the reference in your Microsoft Word document. However, everything will be italicized. Once you have your bibliography done, you’ll need to export the document without Mendeley fields so you can manually unitalicize that part of the reference afterwards.

To export without Mendeley fields, click “Export as” menu in the Mendeley part of Word and select “Export without Mendeley fields”. This exports a version of your document that is NOT connected to Mendeley. You can then manually edit the titles to unitalicize the [Video] section of the title for each reference.

Alternatively, you can wait to add this portion of each reference until you are done writing, then export without M fields, and then add those portions of the reference afterwards.

To my knowledge this is the only way to do this with Mendeley or Zotero. Bibliographic software doesn’t do this automatically.

Best,

Edward Eckel Engineering and Applied Sciences Librarian Liaison to: Engineering and Computer Science

Hsin-Yuan Chen

Jenn C Serra

I appreciate you sharing Ed's response, it's extremely helpful and insightful. I'm sure it will be beneficial for anyone facing the same issue.

Best.

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