I’m writing my thesis and using EndNote to put in my references. I’ve been reviewing my literature review, and have discovered that EndNote has decided to change some of the references to completely different ones. They are not simply shifted down the list - they’re references that I haven’t actually put into this paper at all. And the references that were there have disappeared completely. For example, four government references from the 1950s are now papers from 2007, 2002, 2010, and 1963, and a reference meant to be from 1956 is now a reference from 1817. It also isn’t simply a case of all references after a certain point are wrong: most have stayed correct. Is it because I’m also constantly updating my EndNote library? I’ve tried to find anything to help fix this, but I’m at a loss.
And I’ve just looked at my actual EndNote library and EndNote has completely deleted those references. I know they were there, because I have a printed out draft of my literature review from earlier this week with those references included. I’ve checked the trash folder and they are not there, either. EndNote seems to have just taken it upon itself to delete half a dozen or so (at current count) of my references.
I have seen this happen before, and when it has, it’s because the document was formatting with a slightly different copy of the library previously. They’re similar enough that EndNote thinks it’s the same library, and it then pulls the wrong references in some cases. This could also explain the suddenly missing records – they are likely in the other copy of the lirbary.
If you search your computer for files that end in .enl, can you find any other copies of your EndNote library?
I am having the same issue. I found my current library was accidently deleted due to a clean up error and so re-opened an old copy of my library. I then updated it to include all the references used throughout my text, and ensured that every reference was accounted for. However, as soon as I updated my text it went crazy and replaced all the references seemingly at random! Is there anyway to fix this?? I have a library of over 200 references so really don’t want to have to recreate it from scratch, and I don’t even know if that would work!
Thank god I found a way to fix it (totally by experiment!) if anyone else has the same problem open the copy with the correct references, click convert citations -> convert to unformatted. Then find and replace all # in your document with something else, I used a - but it doesnt matter what. Then click update citations. It will fix the ones it can and ask you which reference you want where it can’t (but helpfully shows you the author and date).