The SP publications web page can generate lists of SP papers that can be cited in a way that can be automatically updated as the order in which they are listed changes or as more are added. This means that the citations in a paragraph or document (summarising progress on a grant, for example) continue to work when that text is reused in another document, or when it is combined with text from other authors in SP. You are therefore strongly advised to use this method when preparing interim grant reports, or a joint report for the main grant, for example.
There are a few simple steps to take:
- Go to the publications search page and search for all the papers with suitable keywords, or including you as an author, in particular years. If this has been done for you by the person coordinating the report, skip to step 2. If not, have a look at all the formatting options (list and tick boxes) there. They give great flexibility in how the references are displayed, which should suit most people's requirements, or taste, or space limitations! The detailed steps here look complicated and long-winded, but they are not really, and they save a lot of time in the long run as lists get updated and you change your mind!
- Enter the various keywords (eg "mbe -c -notsp", meaning mbe-related [that keyword is unlikely to be reliable!], not c and not NotSP, to exclude conference papers that weren't eventually published in a journal and papers published that were nothing to do with SP). Click on "List and add keywords" above the keywords box to get a listing.
- Enter any authors to whom you wish to limit the search.
- Enter any years (ctrl and shift keys help to to select more than one year or a range).
- In the "Format" drop-down list, select the option that is not "default". (Default puts references in square brackets, the other uses superscripts. The order of items is also changed, so ask Chris Ford if you want a simple change to allow square brackets or a different order.)
- For checking format and which papers have been found, ensure "Generate listing as Rich Text Format (RTF)" is not ticked.
- Tick or untick any other formatting options you wish for. Since "Generate listing as Rich Text Format (RTF)" is currently unticked, you can see how they look, before turning RTF on when you are ready to generate the final list for Word.
- Click on "Search" to get a listing of the relevant papers. Check the listing for omissions, formatting problems etc. Correct them and search again until you are satisfied.
- It's useful to keep a copy of this search, for later use. At the bottom of the window (after all the references) is a link to a copy of the same search, but the address (URL) of the new page contains all the search information, so that it can be bookmarked [or copied to a text file, desktop, or web page] for reuse later. Click on the link, and bookmark the resulting page [or copy the address at the top to somewhere useful].
- To produce the final listing for Word, tick "Generate listing as Rich Text Format (RTF)" and ensure "Do not include citations (for RTF)" is not ticked.
- Click on "Search". This should produce a prompt to open or save the RTF file produced. Choose to open it in Word. This may take some seconds, and its window may get hidden behind the browser window.
- Use Save As to save this Word file for later use (change its type to .doc if you wish) (or copy and paste it all into an existing "citations" file). Do not copy it into your main report document as this will mess up bookmarks that label each reference!
- The file you generated in the previous stage, or that you have been given by the report coordinator, is called the "citations" file here. Its reference list looks strange, in that it has the paper number on a line by itself, then the paper's details starting with the number again. The number on its own is a citation, and you should copy it to wherever you wish to cite that paper. This is the crucial step when writing the report.
- Write or review your report, adding citations where required, by copying the appropriate number from the citations file - make sure you copy the right number, the one on its own, not the one at the start of the reference.
- To make it easier to find the required paper in the citations file, if you know the first author and the rough year, in that file press Ctrl-Shift-F5 to bring up a list of bookmarks. There is a bookmark for each paper. The name looks like "refAuthor_Year_SPpaperID", eg refFord_2004_2101. Use the mouse or Page-Up/Page-Down etc to find the required or likely item, and press Return twice, to go to it and close the bookmark window. Press the left cursor key to go up to the citation line, then Shift-Left arrow to select the citation, then Ctrl-C to copy it. You quickly get used to this if you have many citations to add!
- If you notice any omissions, tell the coordinator or regenerate the list. Note that this does not invalidate the work you've already done with inserting citations - they will still work! [The only exception is if you fix a mistake in the year of publication.] This is the great advantage of automatic citations over inserting fixed numbers by hand.
- That's all you have to do, if someone else is coordinating the list. Save and send your report to the coordinator. Otherwise, read on.
- If you are in not in charge of the reference list, you've finished! If not, you now have to generate the real reference list, without the citations that you have been copying, and probably with less information (for example, compressed using "et al.", omitting title, abstract, keywords etc).
- Repeat step 1, using the bookmarked version of the page (see step 1) so it has the same keywords etc. Change the formatting options to tick "Do not include citations (for RTF)", and options like "Show first author, et al." if you wish to save space. Check that the results of the search look right before ticking "Generate listing as Rich Text Format (RTF)" as before, to generate an RTF file. Choose to open it in Word.
- In the RTF file now loaded into Word, do Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C to select all and copy it [and Ctrl-W if you wish to close the temporary file].
- Open the report Word document where you want the reference list. Select any existing list carefully, and use Ctrl-V to paste the new one in its place. Remove surplus blank lines at top and bottom of the new list (the one at the top must be copied in the first place, or else a bookmark gets lost).
- Save the report.
- Select all (Ctrl-A) then press F9 to renumber all the citations. Nothing should change unless the reference numbering has changed since the original citation list was created. Look through the text for grey fields saying "Error! Bookmark not defined!". If there are any, something may have gone wrong with the pasting of the list into the report, perhaps just the first paper has lost its bookmark (so copy the previous line and at least a bit of the paper's line again from the rtf file). You can renumber the list whenever you like, since the citations will now change automatically at the same time, if selected.
- To see which paper is referred to in a citation, put the cursor before or inside the citation and press Shift-F9, which turns the citation "field" into the text that generates it. You should see the bookmark somewhere there (eg refFord_2004_2123). Hide this information by pressing Shift-F9 again.
- Note that various styles are used, so that you can format them suitably later, and so that you can select all instances of a particular style and delete them, should you wish e.g. to remove all abstracts. All references are in style "References". The abstract, if included, is in style "Abstract", and Keywords are in style "Keywords", and hyperlinks are in the style "Hyperlink". More styles can be provided on request. The citations in a citations file are not in any style (i.e. they are in "Normal" style), so that they can hopefully be pasted into an existing document without affecting it.
This should be easy enough for people to use regularly. You will save the person compiling a large report a lot of time if you use the simple method described in step 2 (in red). It is not fair on that person not to do as asked!
If you have any questions or comments, please contact Chris Ford.