RefWorks

RefWorks--yes, it has been kind of slow

If you've been using RefWorks this semester, you may have noticed that there are times when it is very, very slow. Gads, is it frustrating! The RefWorks folks have been trying to identify the cause and repair it. They believe they've identified two issues, and have fixes in the works. If you do experience the slowness, you can contribute to fixing the problem by contacting RefWorks when it happens (support @ refworks-cos.com) and describing what you were doing, when it happened, and other details like what browser (Firefox, Chrome, IE) you were using.

Thank you for your patience. I know we all cannot wait for this to be repaired.

Web of Science/ISI databases now friends with RefWorks!

Good news, Web of Science devotees, you can now send references straight to RefWorks.

1. Mark the records you want

2. Go to the Print/Email/Save to options and the top (or bottom) of your search results and click on Save to RefWorks.

3. A new window will open to RefWorks and, once you are logged in, the sources will be saved to your RefWorks account.

See this super cool video showing these steps: http://screencast.com/t/NaKIJ6hv

This will work with the following databases:

• Arts & Humanities Citation Index
• Biological Abstracts
• CAB Abstracts
• Food Science and Technology Abstracts (FSTA)
• Journal Citation Reports
• Science Citation Index
• Social Sciences Citation Index
• Web of Knowledge

 

RefWorks unavilable overnight Saturday/Sunday

RefWorks will be unavailable for a few hours overnight this Saturday/Sunday, September 4-5 for scheduled maintenance. You may not be able to access RefWorks for up to four hours between 11pm and 3am (CT). It is obviously a sign that, if you are working on references that late on a Saturday night (of Labor Day Weekend, no less) that you should take a break and sleep.

Export from Knovel to RefWorks!

If Knovel is one of your go-to sources for scientific and technical books, you'll be delighted to know that you can export the citation information for the books into RefWorks.  Right now, you'll need to edit the information in RefWorks a little bit. Here's how:

1. In Knovel, click on the title of the book you are interested in, so that you are looking at the table of contents and description of the book.

2. Click on "Citation" (it's a box under the image of the book's cover)

3. A new window will pop-up, click on Export from the icons at the top of the window

4. Choose RefWorks from the list

5. If you aren't already logged in to RefWorks, you will be prompted to do so. If you are logged in, the information will be sent to your RefWorks account.

6. Right now, Knovel is labeling the books as "Generic, Electronic." For RefWorks to properly cite a book, you will need to change the Reference Type to Book (or Book, Edited)

7. While viewing the record for the book in RefWorks, click on Edit. A new screen/window will appear with all of the fields for citing a record.

8. Go to Ref Type and change to Book or Book, Edited

9. Hit Save

So far as I can determine, Knovel only sends the citation information for an entire book.

And here's the awesome video showing you how.

If you want to cite only a chapter from the book, you will need to Edit the record.  This time:

1. While viewing the record for the book in RefWorks, click on Edit. A new screen/window will appear with all of the fields for citing a record.

2. Go to Ref Type and change to Book, Section

3. When the screen reloads, you will now have fields to enter the chapter title, author, and pages. The title of the book and the editor should have moved to the appropriate fields automatically, but it's always good to double-check.

Write-N-Cite, Macs and .docx

Some Mac users may be experiencing some problems with Write-N-Cite and the newer versions of Word. Some issues that have been reported include citations being inserted without the curlicue (funky) brackets {{}}, other times telling it to create a bibliography results in the text coming out garbled.

The RefWorks folks are working on a fix for this. Until then, one solution is to save your file as a .doc instead of a .docx. It almost always does the trick!

Try RefWorks 2.0

RefWorks is rolling out a new look. Right now, you have the option of selecting the new interface when you are in your account by selecting "RefWorks 2.0" from the upper right corner. You can easily switch back to the familiar RefWorks by clicking on "RefWorks Classic" in the upper right corner. Watch it in action. There's a pretty exciting moment in the screencast when the page takes what feels like forever to load. It does load...eventually. This happened to me most of the times I switched to 2.0, so I included it for the authentic experience.

How RefWorks actually functions doesn't change a lot--you still have to add references to your account, you still need to be sure that RefWorks knows when a source is an article and when it is a book chapter, there still isn't spell check and so forth. What has improved is how you find and edit information in your RefWorks account. 

If you come across any problems, let me know (skearns @ k-state.edu) or you can contact RefWorks directly (support @ refworks.com).

Eventually (meaning in a few months, early in the fall semester) we'll all be using RefWorks 2.0--but I'll send out plenty of notice before that happens. And trust me, since I have to update tutorials and screencasts, I won't be rushing the changeover.

Write-n-Cite currently down--here are some workarounds

I just called RefWorks and learned that they know about the problem and are working to resolve it. Apparently they have a server overloaded and are trying to redirect the workload.

Depending on what you are needing Write-n-Cite for, you may be able to work around it.

If you are inserting citations in the text, you can look at your references in RefWorks in One Line/Cite View.

To switch to One Line/Cite View in RefWorks:

• Choose to View a folder or All References.
• Look at the top left of the screen, just below the blue/red/gray tool bar. There is a box that says "Switch to:" and probably says "Standard View" right now.
• Use the drop down to choose One Line/Cite View. The screen will refresh and change to look like it does in Write-n-Cite.

Now, if you need to insert a citation,

• Click on Cite for the source and a window will pop up with the funky {{ }} citation.
• Copy and paste the funky {{ }} citation into your Word document.

Watch this tutorial on One Line/Cite view from RefWorks. (It takes a minute to load and start.)

If you need to format your citations, in RefWorks,

• Go to Bibliography.
• Choose your Output Style.
• Then in the next box, Browse your computer for the Word document that you need formatted.
• Once that file location is in the box, go down and hit Create Bibliography.

The RefWorks folks hope to have this fixed soon.

RefWorks maintenance January 30

RefWorks may be unavailable for up to two hours this evening (Saturday, January 30th) from 9:30-11:30 p.m.

REPAIRED: Save/Edit feature from Get It currently unavailable

The Save/Edit feature should now be working. Please let me know (skearns @ k-state.edu) if you have any problems.

If you try to save citations to RefWorks from Get It, you will likely receive an error. We and RefWorks are aware of the issue and working to resolve as soon as possible. Until then, check out the instructions for exporting citations from specific databases.

New RefWorks tutorials

In addition to the RefWorks guru, I am the tutorial queen today. If you check out the "Watch Tutorials" section at the RefWorks Help Center, you'll see about 4 new tutorials--handily marked "New!"

If you have any tutorials you'd like to see, feel free to contact me (skearns @ k-state.edu).