Manually editing references in text

Hello I’m using Endnote in Microsoft word 2016.  I’m using MMU Harvard style and have a handful of issues.

  1. When I want to change a reference because it is part of the sentence eg: from (Warr, 2002) states that to Warr, (2002) states that, it reverts back to (Warr, 2002) once I re-open the document the next session.  If the easiest way is just to type Warr (2002) can I just add the long reference to my reference list at the end?

  2. SImilar issue, for my Uni’s required style I need to change all et al., into itallics, if I do it manually in text the change isn’t saved.  Or more confusingly some are and some aren’t!

3.  If I add a reference to my reference list (list that is created by Endnote) manually because it hasn’t been able to import into Endnote, I can put it amongst the As for example but then the next time I open the document it is gone.

I can’t save it as plain text because my supervisor likes the document to be a normal Word document that they can apply Track Changes too to give feedback. Am I missing something simple? Please help!

I recommend that you view some of the online videos or join an Endnote webinar to get up to speed, Do look here:  http://clarivate.libguides.com/endnote_training/home  – (care and feeding section is new and important!) and the link to the [youtube channel](Check Out the EndNoteTraining YouTube Channel).  

–but to address your questions.

1. You can never edit the “grey” text in a field as it is autogenerated. see here The way to achieve this is to right click in the grey field, choose “edit citation” and choose Author (Year) although if you need the comma (which seems superfluous) you would need to edit the output style’s template to have the author field followed by a comma.  More about editing files below.  see http://endnote.com/kb/82169 for some more info on editing citations. 

  1. Ditto above, you would need  to edit the output style again to italicize them.  The only reason some would and some wouldn’t is if the settings are different for 1st and subsequent appearances I think!

3. Ditto above, the bibliography is an autogenerated field.  You can enter a reference in the text, and "show only in bibliography, but that is a rare need when you use the editing tools in “edit citation” effectively.  

So the place to look to learn how to edit output styles is here.  

You will probably also want to view this KB article about setting up your journal terms list. http://endnote.com/kb/82228

(P.S. If you are at MMU, they have a pretty extensive website, and if you are using their Endnote online version, you will need to talk to them - to modify the MMU Harvard output style available).  http://libguides.mmu.ac.uk/c.php?g=281251&p=1874100