References keep swapping

EndNote EndNote How To
1

I’m currently trying to solve a problem i’ve got with references swapping in Word 2003, using Endnote X. I swap between two computers and  I thought this might be something to do with that and different versions. I updated both versions and cannot seem to stop it from happening, and i cant find a mention of it elsewhere. I use one library, though it is a big document with a lot of references.

Basically the bibliography is correct, but the citations swap around. When i check the code, its all correct, but the references will swap as viewed in citation to another one by the same author. i.e. (blogs et al 2007,2008; Someone and else , 2008) to (Jones 2001; blogs 2006; else 2002) when jones is included as one of the many authors of the first reference. 

I’m not really sure where to start. Do i need to clean up the code somewhere?

Any ideas would be helpful.  

thanks

Tim 

2

Sorry, this sounds like a job for “Tech suppooortttttt”!

Have you inserted any semi-colons into the prefix, suffix using edit citations?  but my first advice is to always  – save a copy, and then  unformat endnote fields, close everthing, open the document and reformat. 

and do let us know what the problem/solution is?   

3

Thanks for the reply,

I’m just on the re-formatting now. I’ll have to chech the prefixes and suffixes. Does this interfere with the code? 

thanks

tim 

4

I know it can cause wierd shifting issues, but not necessarily swapping issues, such as those you report.  This from one of the FAQs on endnote.com:

In EndNote X or earlier, if you insert a semicolon within the prefix, suffix, or pages field for a citation without preceding the semicolon with the accent grave character (to the left of the 1 key on the top of the keyboard, looks like: ` ). Adding this character using “Edit Citation” to these references may correct the issue.

For example, if you require the citation to read

(As seen page 26; Walpole, 2006)

then in the prefix field you would type

As seen page 26`;

5

Thanks for the help,

The reformatting has worked - i had to go through my whole thesis and match a lot of references! It also picked up the semi-colons i’d used so i have corrected that. It all seem ok now and back to normal. Hopefully it will be fine when i try it on my second computer as well.

Thanks again

tim 

6

sounds like you might have two different versions of the endnote library?

7

Hi, no, I used the same library as i use a mobile hard drive. 

Its all sorted now. After matching up the troublesome references it was corrected. I’m not sure whether that means the matching had gone askew, but seems to imply that. There were semi colons so that could have started it all off. 

tim