New to Endnote and not really understanding what it does

Hi,

I have been playing with endnote for a while now, and don’t think it can do what i want it to do. I have a thesis with 250+ references in. I would like to connect endnote to word and get it to identify all of the references and list them. Then in an ideal world i would like endnote to list possible references associated with the author names and dates so i can select them and end up with a nice tidy reference list at the end. Is this possible? If not why not?

By the looks of things i will have to type each reference into endnote, which will take more time than just manually putting them into the reference section myself?

Andy

Message Edited by andr3 on 03-24-2009 10:55 AM

Hi Andy

No, I don’t think it can do that for you! If you are in a hurry and never intend using those references again, then you may be better just doing it all in your word processor.

However, if you intend to carry on using those references, perhaps in a subsequent course/programme/academic career, then there is advantage in copying them to Endnote. This is a manual process, whereby you have to copy them field by field. So it’s slow. But you only have to do it once - after that you get to reuse them in other documents with no additional effort. It may be possible to format your word references in a certain way and then import them, and maybe some of the experts can comment.’

The smart way to use Endnote is to put the references in there right from the beginning. And most of the online academic databases will do exactly that, which saves a huge amount of time.

But the reverse problem: extracting word text and turning it into Endnote database, that is not the primary use of Endnote (at least in my understanding).  

Derek