EndNote Lessons Learned

I have used EndNote citation software for MANY years but I am still learning :-)  A student in one of my classes had problems with EndNote writing out the names of the author within the citation.  In researching the problem - I found that if the author had published a number of resources and the author's name is entered differently in the EndNote, EndNote believes the author is different, so it attempts to help out by writing out the name.  The work around is to copy and paste the author's name into each resource so that it always appears identically.

When attempting to empty the EndNote trash - the trash would not empty.  We figured out that it was because the citations were being used in the Word document.  After deleting the errors in Word, the trash emptied because it was not in use. 

The third problem - was that the student's EndNote library got locked for some reason.  The research on correcting that problem was to restart the computer.  As challenging as issues such as the three I just discussed - it is rewarding to learn new tricks.

EndNote Citation Manager Update

EndNote citation manager has made new changes by marketing the web version as being free. I imagine that the reason is to be in competition with other free citation managers, such as Zotero, Mendeley, and others (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software).  The web version used to be called EndNote Web.  The new name is EndNote Basic.  The new EndNote Basic provides 2 GB of storage which is comparable to Zotero.

EndNote recently released a free app for the iPad, but the app works only for users who have the EndNote program for the Mac and Windows PC (the purchased version) account.  The most recent version of the stand alone app is X7. 

EndNote Basic provides add-on extensions for the Firefox and Chrome web browsers (probably others, too).  The add-on provides an option to save the citation to MyEndnote.com or Endnote.  When experimenting with it today, I noted that it correctly grabbed the name of the Wikipedia page comparing reference management software, but it did not find the name of the page comparing EndNote Basic with EndNote at http://endnote.com/basic.  I had avoided using the web version previously because it often crashed when I chose the option to capture to the desktop EndNote program.  It did not crash this morning.

Although I was able to capture from a couple of webpages today, it was still annoying.  I had changed the setting on the web version to indicate that the citation was for a webpage, but when I imported the citations to EndNote desktop app, the citations were imported as journal articles.

There are many tutorials for using EndNote on YouTube.  One example is the video below.

EndNote for the iPad

I received an email notification that EndNote is now available for the iPad if you have EndNote X6!  The cost for the iPad app is $0.99. 

When you open the app, you are prompted to enter your EndNote Web username and password.  EndNote for the iPad has an 8 page tutorial on how to use the app.A screenshot of one of the pages is shown below.

The app has a built-in web browser to view websites while you are working with the EndNote web app.  The app includes a download function and also allow you to add files as attachments from Dropbox, the popular cloud storage solution that many of us us.   

Zotero Software and the Mobile Devices - Updated

Martha sent me a link from the Chronicle that discussed a way to use Zotero on the iPad.  Good information but the save process in the original article was flawed. Adam's comment for this blog post provided the updated article URL at http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/the-zotero-bookmarklet-for-the-ipad-and-iphone/44490

The corrected process worked!  I dragged the "Save to Zotero" button to Safari bookmarklets. When I clicked the bookmarklet, the webpage was saved to Zotero.  It even picked up the fact that the webpage was a blog!  See the screenshot below:

Note:  Zotero is now a standalone app for Mac and Microsoft Windows computers.

The good news is that the process provided the opportunity to explore citation software and iPad integration. The not so good news is that development is not a one-click solution as of yet.   The resources I found are:

• ZotPad ($9.99) - allows access to Zotero libraries from a mobile device.  It is available from the Apple app store at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zotpad/id497260579?mt=8 
• BibUp (free) - has a barcode reader to scan in the name and author(s) of books.  Afterwards, you have to use other steps to get the rest of the citation data. It is available from the Apple app store at https://itunes.apple.com/app/bibup-universite-de-fribourg/id418304170?mt=8  Interesting - that I could not find it using the app store search tool, but had to search on the Internet and follow the cookie trail into the back door of the app store.

For additional information about Zotero and mobile devices, go to http://www.zotero.org/support/mobile

Disabling Zotero in Firefox - Another Way

Another way to disable Zotero in Firefox is to open Zotero > Click on the gear icon > Preference > unclick sync.  It is easier than disabling the function from the Add-ons menu.

Disabling Zotero in Firefox

As usual, the students push me to learn new things. :-)  This semester, I have asked the GC students to use EndNote citation manager.  It is free through the University and paid for with student technology fee funds.

Prior to this year, we have used Zotero.  The problem is that when we search the digital library and use the export function with Firefox, Zotero "hijacks" the exported citation and will not allow the it to be imported into EndNote.  In the past, I switched to using another  web browser.

With a little research, I found the correction is very simple - just disable Zotero!
In the Firefox web browser, go to Tools > Add-ons.  Select Extensions from the menu >scroll down and click disable by each listing for Zotero.

When you want to use Zotero again, enable it.  Enjoy!

Chaper 6 - Informatics and Nursing Website Update

Linda updated the website for chapter 6 on word processing in the Informatics and Nursing textbook at http://dlthede.net/Informatics/Chap06WordProcessing/referencesscholarly.html.  

The information on the American Medical Association (AMA) was updated.  AMA is a citation style used by many journals.  It uses numbers for the citations instead of author(s) & year.   While it is easier to read, it is more difficult to write unless using a citation manager. 

Zotero Update

One last update!  Zotero citation manager is now a standalone product!  That is really good news for the few people who  do not want to use Firefox or have problem using Firefox with Zotero.

The standalone installs Zotero into the Word menu when it installs on the computer.  That is especially good for my non-techie students who stumble over two different installs.

For more information, go to http://www.zotero.org/support/3.0

When I was demonstrating Zotero during a webinar last week - the menu did not show up in Word :-(
Yes, it had been working previously.  I found that the problem was because I had not downloaded the latest Firefox web browser.  Afterward a download of the most recent web browser - Zotero was there!!!

Now, if Zotero would only release an iPad app!

Word Processing, APA 6th edition, Reference Management Software

Linda has updated the textbook website for chapter 6 at http://dlthede.net/Informatics/Chap06WordProcessing/chap6.html

I completed a couple of journal article peer reviews, in addition to edits of student papers over the last couple of weeks. While I empathize with the time it takes to learn a citation style, it is relatively painless to use reference management software, such as Endnote, Zotero, as well as a host of others.  Wikipedia has a fantastic page that compares reference management software at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software.

The reference section is a common area for errors.  Wrong author names, titles, journal names, volume & issue numbers, page numbers, and missing doi's, are the top problems I see.  Commercial software, for example - Endnote, allows the user to search databases such as PubMed.  Endnote also allow the user to search for full-text articles, and to import files and folders with PDF documents.  If the PDF article includes metadata - Endnote uses it to create an associated citation and files the PDF in a PDF folder.The imports require little or no edits and citation and the creation of a reference list is done with mouse clicks.  Commercial software may also come with word processing templates for the various citation styles.

I created an APA template for Chapter 6 on word processing.  The template uses the latest (revised) APA 6th style and can be downloaded from the website noted above.