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Greater accuracy, huge time savings and more can all be achieved with a dedicated database system for bibliographic references. If you haven't seen EndNote before, you really owe it to yourself to take a look.
When Dr. Wolfgang Cramer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research says: "I cannot imagine editing scientific papers without it", you get an idea of why EndNote, the world's most popular bibliographic software, is such a major tool in many people's working lives. But for those of you who manage references and create bibliographies the Ômanual' way, grab yourself a coffee and read on.
EndNote can be used in almost any laboratory, academic department or organisation where papers are regularly produced. It manages three general functions: searching of online databases, organising references within the users' databases, and creating bibliographies automatically.
Firstly, EndNote streamlines accessing of hundreds of remote bibliographic databases. It has more than 100 predefined connection files which interrogate these databases, giving you a single consistent interface to them all. Frequent searches can be saved and loaded with a click, and references dragged and dropped into your own EndNote database. You can even preview references in a formatted style.
Secondly, EndNote is a dedicated database management system for bibliographies, so it is hugely more productive than home-made databases. EndNote has 25 customisable reference types including journal article, book, electronic source, and conference proceedings, each with up to 38 fields for entering data, including abstract and notes. Reference types can be fully customised and each EndNote database can store up to 32,000 references.
The software also allows lists of important terms (journals, authors, etc.) to be maintained for consistent data entry, and pre-defined Journal Term Lists are provided for biomedicine, chemistry, and the humanities - complete with common abbreviations of journal names used in bibliographies. Author names, journals and keywords are automatically added to the Term List upon entry, so as you enter new references, Endnote suggests terms from these lists to facilitate the process.
EndNote includes more than 100 customisable import filters for a variety of online and CD-ROM database providers. And of course, there's an excellent duplicate detection function.
The final step for EndNote is to create your bibliographies. These can be generated in Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect, all in one document. Revise your document as many times as needed - EndNote will update the in-text citations and bibliography according to the bibliographic style selected. The software comes with more than 400 predefined bibliographic styles covering medicine, biosciences, the humanities, social sciences and dozens of other disciplines. You can also easily create an unlimited number of your own styles.
EndNote 4, the latest release, includes more than 30 new bibliographic features that address a wide range of formatting issues in the physical, life and social sciences, in biomedicine, and in the humanities. It is the only bibliographic software program that can meet the demanding requirements of a wide range of publication styles. Does it warrant further research? We think so.
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