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EndNote Desktop: Creating a Formatted Bibliography

Information on how to use many of the tools and features in EndNote, a tool that can help you store and organize citation information and format bibliographies and papers.

Creating a Bibliography

Changing your referencing style in Word and EndNote 20

Creating a Bibliography

  • In your EndNote library, highlight the references you want to include in the list.
  • Go to Tools menu, choose the desired style. 
  • Click Copy under the Summary view in the right pane or click Copy Formatted Reference under the References menu on the top.
  • Open Word and create a blank document.
  • Right click and paste in the blank document.
  • A reading list formatted in the pre-defined style is thus created.

Modifying a Style

Modifying a Style to Create an Annotated Bibliography

  1. From the Tools menu, select Output Styles, and then select Open Style Manager.
  2. Select the style of your choice, and then click the Edit button to open the style for editing.
  3. Select Layout from the options under the Bibliography heading and click in the text box under the "End each reference with" heading. Text or fields inserted into this section appear at the end of each reference in the bibliography.
  4. To insert the research notes on a new line after each reference: select End of Paragraph from the Insert Field list. This will ensure the contents of the Research Notes field will appear on a new line beneath the bibliographic data.
  5. There are options available for quick insertion on the Insert Field list, including the Abstract and Notes fields, but the Research Notes field we need is not on the list. The field can still be added by typing it in manually, being very careful the name is entered exactly as it shows in the Generic reference type. In this case, "Research Notes" without the quotation marks.
  6. (Optional) If you want an extra line break after the Research Notes, you can use the Insert Field list to add it at the end of the End each reference with text box.
  7. From the File menu, select Save As and give the style a new name, but keep the .ens extension.  Your new style will be saved in an \\EndNote\Styles folder in your documents folder. By storing your custom styles in your documents folder, EndNote ensures they will not be removed if you uninstall EndNote or install a new version of EndNote that might overwrite the program styles.

Output Styles

  • What is an Output Style?
    • Templates that control appearance of in-text citations, footnotes and bibliographies.
    • Styles defined by journal, such as Nature, or publisher, such as American Psychological Association (APA).
    • EndNote has the most popular Output Styles installed.  Additional Output Styles can be downloaded.
  • Style Manager
    • Style Manager is used to add an Output Style to the Styles menu that appears in the toolbar along the top of the EndNote library window and in the EndNote menu in Microsoft Word.
    • Style Manager is used to edit an Output Style.  For example, you can change how an author's name is displayed in a bibliography.
    • To open Style Manager, select Edit > Output Styles > Open Style Manager... from the menu bar in the EndNote library window.
    • The Style Manager window will open.
  • To add an Output Style to the Styles menu, open Style Manager.
  • Find the style(s) that you want.  To quickly locate a style:
    • Start typing the name of the style that you want to find.
    • Click on the Find by button to browse styles by subject category.
  • Click the box to the left of the style's name to select it as one of your favorites.  
  • Close the Style Manager by clicking the close button in the upper right corner of window or selecting File > Close Style Manager from the menu bar.
  • The styles that you have selected will now appear in the Styles menu.