New book section references based on existing edited book references in library

Hi

I’ve just started using Endnote X2 after having used Bookends on my Mac for quite awhile. I’ve just started new references and couldn’t figure how to do this. Basically, I have a number of existing edited book references in my library. I want to create new references to chapters in these edited books. How do I do this without re-entering the common info like book title, editors, publication info. It sort of makes sense to enter it this way because if I realized I’ve made a mistake to the book title or editor name, all I’ll need to do is to change the edited book reference. 

Copy (Ctrl+C) the record you want and paste (Ctrl+V). You’ll see the record is duplicated. Then edit individual. Make sure the first one you duplicate is all correct.

Thanks for your suggestion. This is what indeed I what I’ve been doing. But it seems like an inefficient way of doing things. After duplicating the record, and then changing the reference type from “Edited Book” to “Book Section,” I still have to move the contents of the Author field to the Editor field, and title to secondary title. Isn’t there an option in Endnote that does this automatically? Also, if I’ve discovered a mistake with the Edited Book reference, then changing it will not change the corresponding entries in all book section references based on this edited book.

Perhaps this might be forthcoming in X3? 

It’s all up to how you want to refer to the reference in the bibliography. Edited book consider the editor as the primary author of the entire book, and you want to refer to the editor up front. Book section considers the chapter writer as the primary author and puts editor as the secondary author. There is no automatic parsing between these two reference types, and I don’t think X3 will change that. It’s been this way for long long time with Endnote.

Please check your output style how book/book section/edited book are formatted. You can use all of three types, but it tends to get confusing, so I usually use either book or book section. Unfortunately, referencing book/book section/edited book has been pretty much manual job, meaning each user has to tailor the entry and output style. Even publishers’ author instructions are pretty vague about these differences.

Adding to the previous post:

Most of journals in biomedicine field don’t define book, edited book, and book chapter separately in author instructions. They just mention book v. book chapter, or complete book v. book section and present format examples for each. This means they accept editor(s) as the representing author of edited book, even chapters are written by other individuals.

Due to this reason, I just use Book and Book section reference types, and put editor’s name into the (primary) author fileld even it is indeed edited book. If I want to refer to the entire book, then I insert the citation in the document using this book reference type record. If I want to refer to chapters in the (edited) book, I duplicate the book reference record, modify to Book Section type, move the Author (in fact, editor) name to the Editor field, move Title to Book title, type chapter authors to Author field, type chapter title to Title, and manually enter page numbers of the chapter. Once I do that, then duplicate the record to create references to other chapters.

Sounds like cumbersome steps, but it doesn’t happen very often in my field, and generally works just fine. I’ve gone through INDEX MEDICUS -Endlink years, so easy and quick enough.

Still not forthcoming. See: http://community.thomsonreuters.com/t5/EndNote-Product-Suggestions/Create-Book-Section-record-from-a-Book-record/m-p/33861/highlight/true#M1116

They may not make bibliographic distinctions between Book and Edited Book in your field, but they do in lots of others. I agree with the querier that EndNote should make this an automatic conversion, as in Bookends. Select an Edited Book reference, then select (from menu?) Copy Reference as Chapter.