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When dealing with many references in the process of research, establishing good practices can help you better manage your references. In return, this can improve your efficiency in using EndNote. Here are some tips to help you better manage your references.
It is a good habit to check if the information of the imported references is correct and accurate. You can correct the information manually when necessary.
Click to see steps in screenshots
Follow the steps below in case bulk change is needed:
Click to see steps in screenshots
Groups in EndNote can help you organize references by different subjects so that you can quickly locate the reference later on. One reference can be assigned to different groups. References added to or deleted from groups will not affect the master record of your library under “All References”.
Click to see steps in screenshots
You may also use "Smart Group" to automatically add references to a group based on assigned criteria. Note that references deleted from a Smart Group will also be deleted from "All References".
You can attach up to 45 files to a single reference, including PDF, MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPEG, etc. You may follow the steps below:
Click to see steps in screenshots
By default, the PDF files attached in your reference library are saved in an independent folder under [reference library name].Data > PDF. Annotation, highlight, and other changes on the PDF files will also be saved there.
You can sort references by clicking on the corresponding column header:
Tips: Sorting by "Title" helps you identify duplicate titles; sorting by "Author" helps you find works from the same author.
You can drag the column header to change the sequence of fields to display:
You can personalize the column header with the steps below:
You can make use of "Label" and "Research Notes" fields to add tags and comments for the references. These two fields are usually empty in the imported references.
The tag and research notes added can be searched within EndNote:
Click to see steps in screenshots
To show Label and Research Notes on the column header, please refer to Sort References and Set Column Headers.
To identify duplicate references, you can use the Find Duplicates function as shown below:
Click to see steps in screenshots
This is particularly helpful when you are doing a systematic review, where you need to de-duplicate quite a number of references imported from different databases.
By default, EndNote detects duplication based on information in fields for Author, Year, Title and Reference Type. You can change the criteria with the steps below:
Click to see steps in screenshots
Tips: Unchecking the Author field can help you find more duplicates because you may have 2 identical articles with slightly different name format (full name vs. initials).
To avoid loss of your references, we recommend to backup your EndNote library using either one of the following options:
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