YAML issue when knitting to pdf - pdf

Question

I have a paper written in rnotebook, which I want to knit to pdf.
this is the beginning of it, including the YAML:
---
title: "Are shifts between points of view challenging for readers? An examination of readers' eye movements in response to Woolf's *To the Lighthouse* and *Mrs Dalloway*"
author: "Giulia Grisot, Kathy Conklin, Violeta Sotirova - The University of Nottingham"
date: '`r format(Sys.time(), "%d %B %Y")`'
output:
html_notebook:
fig_caption: yes
force_captions: yes
#highlight: pygments
number_sections: false
theme: readable
# csl: sage-harvard.csl
csl: apa.csl
bibliography: library.bib
link-citations: yes
nocite: |
#Grisot2018
---
```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE, warning=FALSE, message=FALSE)
```
```{r, include=F}
library(tidyverse)
library(ggpubr)
```
# Abstract
The emergence of empirical approaches within stylistics has increased interest in how literary texts are processed by readers. Techniques of speech and thought representation represent an area ripe for empirical investigation in this respect, especially when these cause interpretative ambiguities.
I have installed tinytex, and I have got miktex installed and pandoc.
I have tried to just use the "knit to pdf" command in RStudio but it gives me this error and i don't know what to do
Error in yaml::yaml.load(..., eval.expr = TRUE) :
Scanner error: while scanning for the next token at line 4, column 31 found character that cannot start any token at line 4, column 31
Calls: <Anonymous> ... parse_yaml_front_matter -> yaml_load -> <Anonymous>
Execution halted

Answer 1

I think this is down to the formatting in your yaml. When I knitted your code R Studio did some re-formatting of the title, but in the process replaced the ' with " in your date, causing the error. I don't have your .bib file so I can't test your exact code, but the following worked for me:
---
title: Are shifts between points of view challenging for readers? An examination of
readers' eye movements in response to Woolf's *To the Lighthouse* and *Mrs Dalloway*
author: "Giulia Grisot, Kathy Conklin, Violeta Sotirova - The University of Nottingham"
date: '`r format(Sys.time(), "%d %B %Y")`'
output:
pdf_document: default
html_notebook:
fig_caption: yes
force_captions: yes
number_sections: no
theme: readable
---
```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE, warning=FALSE, message=FALSE)
```
```{r, include=F}
library(tidyverse)
#library(ggpubr)
```
# Abstract