I am assuming you are using Endnote X8 ? Sorry it has been a week since your post, and perhaps you will get help. Some of your problem may be that there is the travelling library, which may keep an outdated copy of the record hence you get two nearly identical listings even though you deleted/corrected the record in the library itself.
So trying to sort out what you asking:
-
I deleted more than one reference in word by backspacing. Wrong?
If you deleted some of the “grey field” it is possible you corrupted the citation, but usually the whole thing will disappear and it is clean. You say you aren’t using cite while you write and below you show an incomplete endnote temporary citation {Taylor, 1981 #1157 (which is missing the closing curly bracket) so yes, deleting the closing bracket would mean Endnote can’t parse the citation, but I suspect that is just a typo? -
I changed reference in edit and ok. It worked and in bibliography. I had taken old ref out (as above) thinking I would get a double reference. This is when you may have a leftover record in the temporary “travelling library”. If you know you have all the citations in your library, you may convert to unformated citations (never to plain text!), and then update the bibliography again, and that should remove any traveling library and get you back the records. This especially happens if you change a first author spelling, for example.
Before I start what are the 5 dots (showings stars mean? I saw them when working but not now. There is a display library field option for a “ratings” field, which is dots (when unrated) and can be a series of stars (if you click on a dot) that can show or not show as one of your columns. I think they are a waste of space, so you can drag it out, or right click in the top field name row and deselect that “field” or select it if you want to see it again. (see my attached image which shows this field column and the dot you ask about below)
Also what does the dot against the reference mean? I had duplicated my reference list and had to take out duplicates. What is this for?
This is another display field option, which is “read/unread” and the toggle to read is defined in your preferences. Another waste of space column as far as I am concerned. None of those should result in the problem you are seeing.
{Taylor, 1981 #1157} may no longer be that record number if you deleted it and recreated it. If you open the Taylor 1981 record, you will see a record number as part of the name at the top of the window. (see attached image). Converting all the citations to the unformated/temporary citations and then (update them) should result in endnote searching for each. If it isn’t in the library, then endnote will prompt you to show similar records to select the right one.
