RefWorks

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.

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.

RefWorks unavailable on January 2, 2010

Due to maintenance, RefWorks will be unavailable on January 2, 2010. They are updating their servers and getting a new IP address (that means something to somebody, I'm sure).

Right now, we're anticipating that this will go smoothly. 

However, if you'd rather be safe than sorry, you may wish to backup your RefWorks account. Here's a tutorial showing you how to do so.

RefWorks 2.0

RefWorks is getting a new interface!!! You can see a preview at the Refworks 2.0 sneak peek page.

So, on what day will you log in and find everything changed? Well, we know the rollout is happening sometime in early 2010, but I don't have a specific date. And for the first couple of months you will have the power to switch between classic RefWorks and RefWorks 2.0, so you can ease yourself into the new interface.

After a couple of months, I'll be contacting all users to let you know that we're switching to the new interface as a university. Trust me, since I have to update all of my handouts, web pages, tutorials, and instructions with the new interface, this will not happen overnight.

I haven't played with RefWorks 2.0, yet, so I'm not much help yet about how the new interface will change how you use RefWorks, but I plan to get up to speed pretty quickly after the rollout.

PubMed: new interface, new export to RefWorks steps

Courtesy of the good folks at RefWorks

1.  Conduct your search.
2.  Mark the records you wish to export.
3.  From the Send To option, select File as your Destination.
4.  Select Medline as your Format.
5.  Select a Sort By option and click the Create File button.
6.  Save the file to your desktop (or alternatively, open the file)
7.  In RefWorks, go to References, Import.
8.  Select NLM PubMed as the Data Source and Database.
9.  Browse to find the file you saved to your desktop (if you opened the file, copy and paste the text into the Importing Data from the Following Text area).
10.  Click the Import button.
11.  Your references will appear in the Last Imported Folder.

ALTERNATIVELY:

For an individual article:

1. Click on the Get It button (which you were going to do anyway to get the article, right?)
2. From the Get It window, click on  Save/Edit citation in RefWorks
3. If you are not logged into RefWorks already, a new window will open and you will be prompted to log into your RefWorks account. The citation will be imported and will appear in the Last Imported folder
4. If you are already logged into RefWorks, citation will be imported and will appear in the Last Imported folder

UPDATED: RefWorks and EBSCO databases--direct export currently not working

As of this week (November 16, 2009), the direct export from EBSCO databases to RefWorks is working. Please contact Sara K. Kearns (skearns @ k-state.edu) or RefWorks (support @ refworks.com) if you have any problems in the future.

The direct export option from EBSCO databases (see list below) is currently not working.  However, you can still manually export the records using these directions.

• Abstracts in Social Gerontology
• America: History and Life
• CINAHL 
• Communications & Mass Media Complete
• GreenFILE
• Health Source--Consumer Edition
• Historical Abstracts
• Hospitality & Tourism Complete
• Left Index
• Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts
• Mental Measurements Yearbook
• Music Index
• Newspaper Source
• Peace Research Abstracts
• PsycCRITIQUES
• Public Administration Abstracts
• RLM Abstracts of Music Literature
• SPORT Discus
• Textile Technology Index
• Wildlife & Ecology Studies Worldwide

Using RefWorks with LaTex and BibTex

MIT has a great FAQ explaining how to use RefWorks with LaTex.

You can also import references from BibTex to RefWorks (instructions thanks to University of Illinois--Champaign-Urbana.)