I’m trying to display my journal article references in chronological order starting from the earliest reference because it would be interesting to see the progression of the articles over time. What would be the best way to arrange the months in chronological order? The year order isn’t a problem because there is a tab specifically dedicated to it. But for some reason, the program doesn’t recognize January as the first month. Instead, it orders the references alphabetically. For example, the first month listed is April, then August, etc. How could I properly order the references by date? Also, as a side suggestion, it would be beneficial to make this website for user-friendly. It’s a bit hard to navigate. Thank you! Any suggestions would be welcome.
I would approach this probably by first using the Edit/move/copy tool to copy the month field to a new custom field and then edit each month to replace January with 01-January, Feb with 02-Feb, etc. Unfortunately you will have to edit this field for newly entered references going forward. Then you can sort on the field and it should come up in the correct order. Don’t forget the 0 in the first 9 numbers or 1 and 11 and 12 will be sorted together.
Thanks for the suggestion! I wish there was a simpler way to organize the dates. But this process should suffice for now. I’m still a bit unclear as to how I should create the month field. When I go to “Tools,” then “Change and Move Fields,” how do I specify month as a field? Would it just be date?
Yes, well unlike Excel, you can’t specify that the field type is “month”. Word tables have the exact same problem!
You would need to look at your records and see (a) what is the name of the field in the ref type you are viewing (journal) and if necessary (b) check for the “generic” field name for that ref type field. However - at least in Journal - the month (downloaded from PubMed) is in the Date field which is also called “Date” in the generic record. I think you may find it isn’t January, but the three letter “abbreviation” for the month. Jan for January, Jun for June, etc. So I would do the 12 search and replaces with the three letter option.
How do you perform the 12 search? I’m assuming the search will replace all the months with the correct format so that I don’t have to manually type in month for all the references. This will be very helpful if it achieves the proper ordering!
How do you perform the 12 search?
I’m assuming the search will replace all the months with the correct format so that I don’t have to manually type in month for all the references. This will be very helpful if it achieves the proper ordering!
Typo. 12 different searches, one for each month. Yep, not user friendly. Could you use the ePub date? That is entered in a more sortable friendly format, at least from PubMed?
I was going to try ordering using the ePub date, but I can’t find where ePub is under Display Fields. Do I have to set it up as a Custom Field? How would I do that?
Sorry for all the questions!
The generic field that holds the “ePub” info in the journal reftype, is “Edition”.
Thank you for specifying, but the references are still arranged alphabetically. It’s still not chronologically ordered even when I sort the library by Year, then by Edition.
I got the references to be ordered chronologically not alphabetically! I had to write the date under Edition numberically and Sort Ordered the list that way. Now the dates (which are written out because that’s how I would like them to be displayed) are in the proper order!
The only thing I’m having difficulty with now is exporting the list of references in the same order. Right now the references are still exported alphabetically even though they are listed chronologically in Endnote.
This process is so tedoius, but small progress is being made!
great. To get them exported that way, you need to edit your favorite output style to sort in the same way. Save as to a new name, and make sure that is the selcted style showing in the export menu window. (export to RTF to keep formating).
Thanks for all your help! I’m glad everything is properly ordered now.