Bibliography Sort by Author&Date -- n.d. source sorting incorrectly

Using APA 6th edn. style. I have three sources by the same author. According to APA 6th, nothing comes before something, so a source by the same author but with no date (n.d.) should come before the two that have dates.

Should be:

Thomson, J. (n.d.). Tomorrow …

Thomson, J. (2015) Yesterday…

Thomson, J. (2017) Calendars are…

It  is currently sorting:

Thomson, J. (2015) Yesterday…

Thomson, J. (2017) Calendars are…

Thomson, J. (n.d.). Tomorrow…

Any ideas?

AM

Technically speaking, when there is a mix of numeric and text data in the same field the sort order starts with numbers first followed by text. That is why in your case the year dates are sorted correctly but the no-date (“n.d.”) appears last. Endnote at present is unable work with sorting no-dates but there is a workaround that provides an integrated sort of year dates and no-dates – refer to attached image #1 or sample result.

The process involves:                                          

1. Moving the “n.d.” from the Year field into either another unused field or a custom field. (For this example the “n.d.” was moved to the Notes field This leaves the Year field blank which Endnote will treat as though it were a zero. Refer to image #2.

  1. Modifying the applicable bibliography templates of the APA 6th output style to the following format below affecting Year to include the “Notes” field. (The vertical bar represents the “forced separation” command.) Refer to image #2 for sample modifications made to the Book and Book Section templates. The Journal Article template was also modified but not shown in the image 2.)

            |(|Year|Notes|)

Note that this workaround only applies to the bibliography template. In-text citations will need to be manually edited to include the “n.d.”.

Refer to the attached modified output style file.

image1_sample result.gif


APA 6th_Annette1932.ens (67.3 KB)