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EndNote X9

Maintaining References

Ensuring that the references in your EndNote library are accurate and consistent, and that there are no duplicates, will help to ensure that reference lists you produce will inspire confidence in your academic rigour.

Enhancing your references with attached PDFs and notes will help you to make the most of EndNote as a research tool.

If essential details are missing from a reference you have imported, or if there are typos or missing capitals in e.g. place names, you will need to edit the reference.

  • To edit a reference:
    1. Double-click to open the reference, make the changes you want
      • by typing
      • by using cut and paste
      • by using the font and style settings in the toolbar
        EndNote - Font and Style settings
    2. Close the Reference to save your changes.
  • If a reference is missing key data, you may be able to find that quickly using Find Reference Updates.
    1. Click on the reference(s),
    2. then right-click to see the References options
      EndNote - Reference options
      EndNote's matching criteria do not always work perfectly, so check carefully that what you are offered is indeed what you want.
  • To add a saved PDF to an existing reference:
    1. Right-click on the reference to see the References options,
    2. choose File Attachments Attach File,
      EndNote - Attach file
    3. then choose your PDF from wherever you have saved it.
    4. Click Open, and the PDF will be saved into the record.
      Check out the options for highlighting, adding sticky notes, and word search, on the mini toolbar.
      EndNote - Anotate PDF
  • Finding full text:
    1. Right-click on one or more references and select Find Full Text Find Full Text.
      EndNote - Find Full Text
    2. You can see the result in the left-hand sidebar.
      EndNote - Find Full Text result

This is not a perfect system, especially outside of the University of Otago, Wellington network (e.g. if you are working at home), but it can still save you time.

Any PDFs found will be added to the library automatically.

Any URLs found will be added to the URL field of the record. Click these to get to the publisher's website where you will usually find a PDF.

Do not assume that those not found will be unavailable. Copy and paste the title of the article into Library Search/Ketu and you will often get full text, or you can contact us for help.

As your library grows, you will find that some references are duplicated.

To identify these:

  1. Click References Find Duplicates.
    EndNote - Find duplicate references
  2. EndNote will find the references, and offer you an easy comparison table. It is not always a clear choice, but you can copy and paste information between the two records before choosing which to keep.
    EndNote - Compare duplicate references
    Click image to enlarge
  3. If the fields are not lining up, then check the Ref Type at the top as well, and prefer the Ref Type that best matches your record.
  4. If the references are not duplicates, just click the Skip button.
  5. Once you choose which record to keep, the other record goes into the Trash folder.

Again, this is not a perfect system and will not identify as duplicates things like:

  • different representations of an author name, e.g.
    Dieu Hien, Pham Tran
    Hien, Pham Tran Dieu
    Dieu-Hien Tran Pham
  • initials vs full name in different records, e.g.
    Mikahere-Hall, A.
    Mikahere‐Hall, Alayne
  • article titles if one is preceded by a section label, e.g.
    Annual Research Review: Developmental computational psychiatry
    Developmental computational psychiatry

Check by eye, using the sort function on fields like Author, Title, Pages