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Educational Technologies Center for Life Sciences

Endnote FAQ...answers to questions from Life Sciences

Inserting citations as you write

Position the cursor where you want the citation, select the reference in your library and drag it to the document. Or use Add-in>Insert citation.

Multiple references in one citation

Position the cursor where you want the citations, hold down command key and click the multiple references in your library to select them (or the shift key if they are adjacent to one another) and drag then to your paper. Or use Add-in>Insert citation.

Citation prefixes

Type the prefix into the temporary citation between the left angle bracket and the author's name, followed by a backslash: For example, [see also\ Roe, Jane, 1988 #45] will format (see also Roe et al. 1988) in the annotated format.

Learn to use the import filters

Connection files are terrific, but rely on third party servers and technologies. But if you learn about the import filters, you'll have more flexibility to import references from a wider variety of sources. Additionally, a database's native search is usually more powerful than that provided by the Endnote connection file.

Why can't I connect to Current Contents, PubMed, etc?

If you're using the connection files provided by Endnote, they might need to be modified for the UIUC campus. Biotechnology Librarian Katie Clark is working on a web page where you can download the appropriate files into your Endnote Connections folder. See http://door.library.uiuc.edu/biotech/EndNoteSupport.htm , along with information for installing them. At this point they are PC only, but we're working on Mac versions.

"Direct Export"

The Ovid databases (Current Contents and the Web of Science among others ) now offer an option which will put your downloaded references directly into an Endnote library. See http://door.library.uiuc.edu/biotech/EndNoteSupport.htm for more information about this cool new feature. Now can use the databases' more powerful features and have your references go directly into your library.

Connecting to PubMed

If you are using an older version of Endnote (5.x, 4.x or 3.x) you will no longer be able to connect to the PubMed database directly with an Endnote connection file.

You will still be able to search Pubmed "the old fashioned way" and download references using your web browser however by going directly to the National Library of Medicine at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/.

For step by step instructions go to http://www.endnote.com/alert.htm and scroll down. Basically, you display the search results as Medline, save them as a file and import them into your Endnote library using the PubMed (NLM) import filter.

© 2003 - E. Barbara Meyer - EdTech Center - Life Sciences - University of Illinois - Urbana, IL USA