I’m on Mac OSX 10.4.11, using Word 2004, battling Endnote XI and wrestling with the MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) style template.
The main bugbear is repeat citations and looking at some of the posts on this forum, it does not seem easy if even possible to edit what is included within repeat citations (although surely this is what makes up the bulk of references in a paper?). I am using CWYW and am trying to edit repeat citations in the footnotes having already put in relevant details in the short title field back in the main EN library.One problem is MHRA does not seem to have set up repeat citations for things like manuscripts (??!!) so when I put relevant details in the short title field, nothing gets transferred to the Word document. I shall edit the footnote, inserting or deleting bits, but when I save my document or even insert a new citation, some of the repeated citations (e.g. manuscripts, edited books) revert to their original state whilst others (e.g. books) do not. I have no problems with manually tweaking things in Word (and thanks to whoever’s idea it was to use the “Find and Replace” option in word as a speedy way of doing this) but to do it EVERY TIME I open the document up? My main concern is with referencing the manuscripts because if I loose that info in the middle of a thesis chapter, then I am scuppered.
Why are these repeat citations not staying in their edited form? Or to put it another way, can I tame them?
One other thought springs to mind; if one were to create a style from scratch, is it possible to dictate what your repeat citation looks like?
Any thoughts will be gratefully received. I have also emailed technical support about this and am waiting for their response. Thanks muchly.
The Modern Humanities Research Association style that I am looking at (as supplied with EndNote X2) is not set up as a footnote style. It is set up as a numbered style. I’m not familiar with the MHRA style manual, so I don’t know if this is correct.
Numbered styles do not support the Short Title feature. Only footnote styles (like Chicago 15A) support short titles in repeat citations. As you say, the repeat citations function is very limited as to what it will do, but it will certainly insert short titles for the Manuscript reference type.
The formatting of repeat citations is not specific to a particular reference type. There is just one setting for all reference types, and it provides very little possibility for customisation.
Thanks John for your response. I believe I downloaded the MHRA style from the MHRA website ages ago but certainly their style guide indicates this is one that uses footnotes. I’ve also just tried editing the Chicago 15A to my needs but still nothing is coming out for repeat citations of manuscripts, theses and edited books.
So nothing can be done within Endnote to sort out repeat citations (argh)… but any ideas why my editing in Word keeps reverting back?
I attach a quickly edited version of the Chicago15A style that I used to test the formatting of the Manuscript reference type. It worked fine with repeat citations.
Just to confirm, are you typing the full title in the Title field of your EndNote references, and typing a short title in the Short Title field? Chicago 15th A edited_manuscript.ens (44 KB)
Thank you for tweaked Chicago style. Yep, the manuscripts are appearing in the repeat citation. How did you do that? I had been putting the appropriate style of title into the Short Title field in the hope of getting that in the repeat citation. In my current tweaked MHRA style and my experimental Chicago A the other day though, nothing was coming through on the repeat citation. No author, no long title (even for those entries without a short title). Just an ominous comma.
Also any thoughts on how to prevent the reversion of manually formatted footnotes in Word?
Thanks for all your help so far. I am most grateful.
@marvmatafarri wrote:
And the Short Title route works with no problems for books and journals! So all a bit odd that manuscripts were not playing ball.
I suspect John created a footnote template for “manuscripts” when there wasn’t one.
Also any thoughts on how to prevent the reversion of manually formatted footnotes in Word?
Thanks for all your help so far. I am most grateful.
I think the only way to manually edit footnotes, is to --just before submission–, unlink the field and edit it. Footnotes, unlike citations don’t have the same flexibility as the citations themselves.
Thanks for that, Leanne. But there is already manuscript template for footnotes in the MHRA style and thus my personalised style so I’m not sure then why it would not come through when the footnote is repeated.
And yes *sigh*… I was beginning to resign myself to that fate of a large and final session of “find” and “replace” for the errant repeated citations in my footnotes. Bit frustrating as one of the points of getting Endnote was the fact much of the awkward formatting was supposed to happen as I went along. Shame there isn’t the flexibility in footnotes as for in text citations; makes life a bit more awkward for all the humanities types who would use it.
My Chicago didn’t have a manuscripts template, so I would compare John’s style with your own and you should be able to spot the differences. But me, I would just copy John’s from his and paste it on top of the one you have in your style, if it works for you!