EndNote: Term Lists & Journal Abbreviations

When do you need to look at term lists?

1. If your in-text citations in APA style have the author's first initials, e.g. (H. Buchanan, 2019; H. E. Buchanan, 2019).

   If these are two different authors with the same family name, this is sometimes correct in APA style (see APA manual section 8.20).

   However, if you have two items by the same author, initials in your citations tell you that this name was entered inconsistently in EndNote.

2. If you are downloading citations from a database like PubMed that uses journal abbreviations, e.g. J Adv Nurs for Journal of Advanced Nursing.

   Some referencing styles require abbreviations and some require full journal titles. Term lists allow EndNote to change this automatically for you as you change your referencing style.

Term lists are used to maintain the consistency and accuracy of author names, journal titles, and keywords in an EndNote library. Any editing of journal titles needs to be done in the term lists, to make sure that each title has only one entry. Author names need to be edited in each record, but deleting incorrect names from the author term list will make it easier to maintain consistency.

The first time that a journal title or author's name is added to an EndNote library, EndNote automatically creates an entry in the relevant term list. This entry will be used in subsequent EndNote references when you enter that journal or author.

You should check the term lists periodically for duplicate records that have been created accidentally. This can prevent some future issues where it seems like EndNote is not working correct in Word, or seems like it is not applying the rules of your referencing style properly.

Authors Term Lists

The authors term list is a list of every author you have entered in your references. The first time you enter a new author's name, it will appear in red. Once you save that reference, it will go into your term list exactly as you first saved it.

You can check the term list to see if you have the same author's name entered in multiple different ways in your references. If you find a duplicate, you will need to locate it in each reference (use the search bar to find the name), correct it there, and then delete the duplicates from your term list.

Duplicate entries for the same author in your authors term list can be one reason that EndNote adds initials into in-text citations: EndNote is trying to differentiate between what it believes to be different authors with similar names.
 

Journals Term Lists

The journals term list includes every journal you have entered in your references, similar to the author term lists. It can also include standard abbreviations for journals, as required for styles such as Vancouver. The EndNote program folder comes with several subject discipline term lists (with standard abbreviations) that can be imported into your Library.

This journals term list is helpful in two ways:

• Grouping common abbreviations together in the journal term lists will allow you to swap between referencing styles quickly and easily, which can save time if you are submitting a paper to journals with different requirements.
• Journals term lists also allow you to import citations from databases that use these common abbreviations (e.g. PubMed), and use these imported citations to cite in APA style without having to change journal titles individually in each reference.

Students and researchers in health and medical sciences especially are advised to import the Journal Term List (Medical) to aid in switching between APA, Vancouver, and other referencing styles required for publishing in the discipline. The (Medical) Term List contains 2 lists of journal titles: full name and abbreviation.

Note: Remember to edit the journal title as required in your Journals Term List and delete any duplicate entries for the same journal.

Further information and instructions on accessing Term Lists in EndNote:

To import the journals term lists for your subject discipline, you should first delete the terms that are currently in your list. This will not delete the journals from the references in your library. They will repopulate the term list once you have finished importing the appropriate journals. The steps are as follows. (EndNote X9 instructions here.)

Windows (PC)

1. Go to Library > Open Term Lists > Journals Term Lists.

This will open the Terms tab. Delete any journal names already in this list, as they might not be correct. (Click CTRL-A, then choose the Delete Term button.)

2. Now go to the Lists tab. From here, highlight Journals, and choose the button Import List.... This will allow you to choose from the available lists. Highlight the list you want, and click Open. When you go back to the Terms tab, you will be able to see a list of all of the journals and standard abbreviations you have imported.

Mac

1. Go to Library > Open Term Lists > Journals Term Lists.

This will open the Terms tab. Delete any journal names already in this list, as they might not be correct. (Click Command-A, then choose the Delete Term button.)

2. Now go to the Lists tab. From here, highlight Journals, and choose the button Import List....

3. Locate the term lists in the file explorer that pops up. Go to Applications > EndNote 20 > Terms. This will allow you to choose from the available lists. Highlight the list you want, and click Choose. When you go back to the Terms tab, you will be able to see a list of all of the journals and standard abbreviations you have imported.

Further information is available in the Help pages in EndNote, under the Help menu.