Using Endnote for the first time

Hello,

I have a phd thesis which I have to organize according to author-date style. My references are improperly cited and are in different styles, so I just downloaded the Endnote trial version to help me organize references and bibliography. This is my first encounter with this program and I am having some difficulties.

So I have a cople of quesitons:

  1. I need to transfer each reference manually from my thesis in Word, into Endnote, is that right?

  2. My references are not properly written, so I thought that inserting them into Endnote and indicating the style I need, the program would automatically correct the references, or do I have to break down each reference myself and put each part of the reference in appropriate window? i.e. author in the author window, year in the year window,etc. This would require huge work ! I thought that Endnote did this, maybe I didn’t understand, could you please help me figure out how to do that? 

Thanks in advance

I suggest that you consider viewing a couple of the youtube training videos including getting started in 7 minutes and other training videos here: http://endnote.com/training

Endnote can import all the information from each of your citations from databases, if a public one exists for your field (like pubmed for medical sciences).  see http://endnote.com/kb/82803

It cannot easily parse a text based bibliography, if that is what you currently have in your thesis.  

You could look at this thread http://community.thomsonreuters.com/t5/EndNote-How-To/can-endnote-scan-an-old-80-page-word-document-… and here https://blogs.library.ucsf.edu/inplainsight/2012/10/17/transferring-a-word-bibliography-to-endnote/ and here Hubmed

Endnote needs to import a very structured file, or to use Hubmed or cb2Bib to assist in the import.  I still think it easier to import topics from a database.  

It cannot extract automatically, text citations you have inserted in your text.  It needs to know what citation goes where from its own database that you need to build.  

Basically, there is really no easy automated way to convert/incorporate a text document to endnote.  The software is best used as you write rather than after you write.  In addition to the other advice I gave you, you might consider looking at this thread:  

http://endnote.com/kb/106211