Custom reference citation

In my research through the US National Archives for material on my project, the only reference I can come up with are the Record Group and the Box that contains the files. For example, I’ve been formatting the citation as “Record Group 77, US National Archives, Box 21,” for instance. However, I don’t seem to find any way that APA6, which I am using to compile my reference data-base, accommodates a citation of this type. Is there a “Generic” or “user-definable” way to make the reference?

Lastly, is there an easy way to “edit” a citation once I’ve added it to my EndNote data-base?

What kind of archived documents are you working with? Can they be attributed to a specific author or organization? If so, you could use the author (person or institution) and follow the bibliography reference example from the APA 6th manual. Refer to section 7.10 of the APA 6th manual concerning “Archival Documents and Collections” which provides the following example:

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of material [Description of material]. Name of Collection (Call number, Box number,  

     File name or number, etc.). Name of Repository, Location.

If you’re able to pinpoint a specific author or organization then the in-text citation could follow the regular Author-Date format of Endnote’s APA 6th output style file. However, like the Book or Journal Article reference types, you might consider creating a reference type specifically for Archival Documents. This allows categorizing of the Endnote records and creating a bibliography template in Endnote’s APA 6th output style that follows the format of section 7.10 of the APA manual.

Thank you very much for your kind reply. I guess I need to get a little more specific. It was like trying to find the Arc of the Covenant. Inside the National Archives there are rows upon rows of stacks containing boxes for sundry things. One of the designations they give is the “Record Groups,” for example, “Record Group 77” refered to one stack of shelves, which contained a lot of boxes. The box I was looking for was called “Box 21.” Inside that box there were several documents. Some of them had authors, most of them didn’t. They were either handwritten or typewritten notes, but no author’s name was attributed to them 

From the example you give, since there is no author, I’m guessing I would skip the Author, A.A. (Year, month, day). insert the description of the material, for example “Underground wells.” The “name of the Collection” I would give as “Record Group 77, Box 22.” And then the Name of the Repository, say “US National Archives,” followed by Location, say “Washington, D.C.” 

I have to go back to EndNote to see if there is a category called “Archival Documents and Collections.” If not, I guess I’ll have to learn how to creat my own custom style in EndNote.

Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.

I don’t see an out of the box, Archival reference type.  

So first you would create that ref type from one of the “unused” reference types (in preferences).  

Then you need to create the “template” for the style in APA 6 output style.    I usually start by copying the generic to the new template, which changes the fields to the names you gave them in the ref type, deleting extraneous items, and punctuation, and cleaning it up and adding missing fields as necessary.  I am trying to add some tools, but i am having trouble getting into the knowledgebase right now.  

Thank you, Leanne. This will help a lot. I tried a work-around, but I’m not completely satisfied with it.

remind me later – if you need the style guide tools?