EndNote sucks
I’m battling with EndNote at the moment, and I’ve just about had it. The database structure is rubbish, and its formatting rules are inflexible and counter-intuitive. Although I get a free license to use EndNote while I’m a student, if someone can point to a better alternative, I’d be happy to pay for it.
I tried using End Note for a while but MS Word sucks just as much if not more so I turfed them both in favour of LaTeX and BibTex. Depending on how quickly you need to get up to speed it may be an option but if you’re looking for a 1-for-1 replacement for End Note I wouldn’t recommend it. LaTeX is a pretty big shift if you’re not used to composing in plain-text and then viewing in another medium. Being a geek, it was an easy transition for me and may be for you, too, Robert.
LaTeX and BibTex are definitely great at what they do, but I agree with Ben that it can be a big shift. Instead, you might wish to have a look at BiblioExpress (http://www.biblioscape.com/biblioexpress.htm). I haven’t used it much myself, but am surrounded by a number of academic staff and students who swear by it (having reached the same level of frustration as you possess with Endnote).
Cheers
Endnote does even worse things in Mac OS. Libraries arbitrarily disappear, change format, lose their resource forks, and turn into all manner of clusterfucks. I did get it for nothing as well, though, and it does look pretty.
As well as meaning to learn LaTeX and BibTex, I’ve been meaning to check out this tool for a while but haven’t found the calm time to do it:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/tools/scribe/
Of course there’s a whole other bunch of stuff I could be doing. Save the world, organise the workers, clean the dishes.
What are the exact problems you’re having? I love EndNote and found it a god send…but then, I’ve never tried anything else. Perhaps it’s geared towards more of a scientific referencing style.
It’s obviously a lot better than doing it manually, but I just find the database and user interface very clunky, especially in data entry but also display. There are a couple of major sticking points with the reference output, too, because our College of Law style guide is a bit peculiar. Perhaps because I’m used to blog templates, I’m getting frustrated by the lack of flexibility in coding the output styles.
I’ll have a look at the things that have been mentioned here, and hopefully one of them will suit me. From my brief look at Scribe, it looks like something I’d use if it had a few more features, and it doesn’t look like they’re far off implementation, either.
gjw, I loved it too when I first got my penny-pinching hands on an Arts Faculty student copy for Mac OS9. It beats the arse off drawing up footnotes by hand and it’s a nifty tool for storing notes on everything you read. It’s just that the developers don’t seem to significantly changed anything in it for years. Rob is right. The data entry is shocking and shames the whole concept of using computers to store information accessibly.
It has entirely failed to cope with the transition to OSX, in my opinion. Mac development at the Casa de Endnote is having una siesta. Zzzzz.
(I really do hope, Rob, that you’ve never tried the Search function, for your own mental health.)
What this scribe application looks to be good for, at my equally brief glance, is storing notes associated with publications which, for me at least, would whip Endnote into a shameful submission. And then, of course, there’s the joy of TeX…
I never got around to going to the Endnote course, and hence I still do bibliographies the horrible old fashioned way!
I’m in my first semester of university at the moment and I don’t have a clue how to use EndNote. Like Mark, I do my referencing manually, and to be honest I haven’t seen what the big deal is yet. Maybe first year referencing lacks intensity, or something, but all I know is that for my first assignment my original mark of 6.0 was crossed out and replaced with 7.0 on the back of what was deemed “excellent referencing”. Is EndNote supposed to make the referencing quicker, easier, or both? I’m not sure why I’d want to bother learning how to use it at this stage.
I do most of my referencing manually, but that’s mainly because I haven’t found a program that I’m happy with. Programs like EndNote should make referencing quicker and easier — basically, it’s a database of bibliographical information, and you set up referencing templates according to the style guide you’re working with. Then it’s as simple as a couple of clicks to insert in-text references, footnotes, or a bibliography.
As Liam notes, the software should also allow you to store and search your notes about different works. EndNote’s capabilities in that respect are woeful, and although you can now link to PDF files if you’ve got them, the interface means it’s almost pointless.
Mark, Ian. The difference between using a referencing database and doing the footnotes-the-hard way is the difference between pedalling your pushie uphill and getting the bus driver to take you there.
With an application like Endnote you can store all of the relevant information and then [cut]+[paste] it into your word processor of choice, in fields which will update themselves to reflect all of the other fields preceding them. So, all of your Op cit(s), Ibid(s), and so on will reconfigure themselves!
You can probably get yourself a student copy of Endnote if you’re in an Honours stream or above, or if you’ve got a friend in the Faculty IT department. Ian: learn how to do it properly. It’s knowledge that’ll do you proud.
I can recommend the LaTeX/BibTeX combo. I don’t know myself, but surely BibTeX could be used in conjuntion with MS Word? At any rate, you would have no regrets about using LaTeX, and the learning curve isn’t that big, especially if you use LyX (www.lyx.org). LyX is a free graphical LaTeX editor, definitely worth checking out.
Good luck.
I should have also mentioned the Windows version of LyX is at:
http://www.home.zonnet.nl/rareitsma/lyx/
When students come at the referrence desk at Melbourne Uni we point them to this site:
http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/endnote/index.html
I hope it works outside the uni…I’m not sure. This site was created by the librarian responsible for Endnote here.
It might help.
Thanks, Guido. I note that UniMelb doesn’t recommend using EndNote 8 if you can get version 7 instead. Perhaps that’s partly the problem, though a previous effort a couple of years ago led to similar frustration.
Interesting that Melb Uni recommends it, because our style guide is based on Melb Law School’s AGLC, which is the one that won’t work in endnote.
It does seem much more geared to science type degrees, as there are an awful lot of science referencing styles in the program.
But given how advanced word processing and data retrieval have become, and how easy, just for example, blogging interfaces are to use, it does seem ludicrous that there’s not some way that you can just plug in details about the indiosyncratic formatting you require, and it will just magically output the information in the manner you wish. Like, surely it’s not that hard?
…Says the person who’s waiting for her techie boyfriend to work out the problem so that I’m not wasting valuable research time trying to format references in a database, and who still hasn’t worked out how to make blog uploads work…
End note is a cunting twat of a bastard. However once you get used to it you’ll never leave it. Particularly useful for importing references from online libraries and journals. Take your propeller hat off Rob and go with the flow man.
For Mac OS, I recommend Bookends
After years of struggling with Endnote, I switched to Jabref and haven’t looked back:
http://jabref.sourceforge.net/
Amir
As a former Endnote user, I agree.
I’m now the co-project lead for the OpenOffice bibliographic project, as well as author of this citation style language I’d like to incorporate into our project:
http://xbiblio.sourceforge.net/csl.html
If you want to contribute to open alternatives, let me know if the style language supports your needs. I’m quite aware law is one of the more tricky areas, but think I’ve covered most of what you’d likely need.