Managing References Using EndNote (1)

When we are dealing with academic writing or any writing with reliability need, we have to enclose all references we use. For a short essay, managing reference may be handy, but for lengthy article with hundreds of reference, it is helpful to have specific software to ease our task.

EndNote is powerful software for reference management. There are some others software such as Zotero and Biblioscape, but I have been using EndNote since my undergraduate study, so I am more familiar with it. You can check other reference management software here.

Now I will assume that some of you do not know EndNote before, thus I will start with the program and user interface. EndNote is developed by Thomson Reuters, and is not free software. It costs around US$ 300. However, institution can have a license for multiple users, for example university can share the license for its students. Find EndNote here.

After installing EndNote, every time we want to use it, we will be asked to create a ‘library’ first. This is the file for reference storage, in format of .enl (EndNote Library). Name your library first, and then we will get this display. Here I am using EndNote X3. The latest version of EndNote is EndNote X4.

You can insert reference into EndNote manually, or importing from another EndNote library, or export the reference directly from a website. Firstly I will explain about manually creating reference list.

From the display above, choose ‘References’ tab and then ‘New Reference’, or simply click the ‘green plus’ sign. You will be brought to this interface:

The default reference type is ‘journal article’, but you can choose other types via the drop down menu.

After that you can fill the form, starting from author name and so on. You can write ‘first name middle name last name’, or ‘last name, first name middle name’. Both are okay. If the name is abbreviated, make sure you put period after the abbreviation. Then you can fill all the necessary fields, and when you finish, just close the reference. You have to manually insert one by one using this method. You will have list of references like this.

Inserting citation to word processor is also easy. I am using MS Word, so I take that as an example. You can put EndNote as an add-in in MS Word, so you can directly connect EndNote library to your document. When you want to insert a citation, just place your cursor on the place you want, and select ‘insert citation’ in EndNote or in the MS Word EndNote tab (the red arrow there in EndNote).

How the references are displayed depends on what reference style we choose. EndNote has over 4,000 different reference styles we can easily pick. American Chemical Society (ACS) style, for example, uses number-identified reference as depicted below.

Author-identified reference styles are also available, such as American Geophysical Union (AGU) style.

What do you think? It makes referencing simpler, right?

When you are using bibliographic sources such as Science Direct, NCBI, or IWAP Online; they provide quick button to ‘export’ the citation. It means we don’t need to manually fill the field in EndNote.

This one is from Science Direct.

There is a tab of ‘export citation’ to download the RIS file for EndNote referencing. You will see  page like this.

You can choose to just export the citation or with its abstract. After that a RIS file (.ris) will be downloaded, and you only need to click the file, choose your existing library, and finish! New reference is now in your library. Easy peasy!

Other than RIS format, EndNote is also able to import .enw files. Just perform the same action as .ris files.

The layout of each internet sites may be different, so here I give some other examples.

J-Stage (click the RIS text)

ASCE (go to ‘Tools’ then choose ‘Download Citation’)

SpringerLink (click ‘Export Citation’ then see below)

SpringerLink (choose EndNote)

ACS Publication (click ‘Download Citation’)

Then choose RIS format and your preference.

Wiley Online Library (click ‘export citation for this article’)

Choose your preference and then click ‘submit’.

InformaWorld (find ‘cite this article’)

IngentaConnect (choose ‘Export options’ – ‘EndNote’)

RSC Publishing (select ‘Download Citation’, then ‘EndNote’)

NRC Research Press (look for ‘Download Citation’)

Then choose your preference.

Using this way you can save your time from manually typing your references.

For a site like NCBI, it uses MEDLINE format instead of RIS, and cannot be directly imported to EndNote library by just clicking the file. You need to perform this operation.

Find ‘Send to:’ and choose ‘File’ and ‘MEDLINE’ format. The file will be saved as text file (.txt). To import it to EndNote, open EndNote interface, select ‘File’ ->‘Import’ -> then you will see this window appears.

In ‘Import Option:’ choose MEDLINE (Medscape), find your .txt file, and then click ‘Import’.

Your reference will be added to the library.

At first I was confused how to export the citation from NCBI site, but then my lab mate taught me how to do it. Thank you!

One important note: the journal in MEDLINE will be abbreviated, for example Water Research will be written asWat Res, while RIS (.ris and .enw) keeps the full name. Just make sure to double check your reference display.

You can also import references from other EndNote libraries, either in bulk or just certain references.

Hope this article helps you in managing your references :)

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If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to ask =)

-Citra

P.S. This article was first published in my blog:

http://citraningrum.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/managing-references-using-endnote/

All pictures featured are print-screen captures (Citraningrum's personal collection).