Subject Guides: EndNote desktop: FAQs and tips: Acronyms in citations

There are three possible approaches for getting acronyms in your in-text citations using EndNote.

Edit your citations as you go. More work as you write, but you end up with perfect document without any further work at the end.
Use an extra temporary reference in EndNote. Less work as you write, but you need to do a little bit of work at the end to get your document perfectly compliant with your style.
The technical approach. For those not afraid of technical details, search-and-replace in Word, and requiring perfect attention to detail to not mess up your document.

We'll be using APA 7th as the example style.

Acronyms in in-text citations

Advantages

Control. All citations and references remain linked to EndNote for spelling corrections, updates, style changes, etc.

You control each use of the acronym.

Disadvantages

Slower, and somewhat tedious as you need to edit every in-text citation.

1. Create your reference as normal

Use a comma after any corporate name.

screenshot of EndNote showing Author field filled with an example ended by a comma

2. Fixing the very first in-text citation manually

Click once (do not double-click) on the first citation for the corporate author you want to abbreviate. The background will turn a pale grey (depending on your Word settings).

animated GIF showing how clicking an in-text citation changes its background colour

On the EndNote tab of the toolbar ribbon in Word, select Edit & Manage Citation(s)

animated GIF showing click on Edit & Manage Ciitation(s) in Word, on the EndNote tab

In the Formatting drop-down of the dialog box that appears, choose Exclude Author. This completely hides the current form of the author.

screenshot demonstrating changing the Formatting drop-down choice from Default to Excude Author

In the Prefix field, type the author format as you want it to look, including both the corporate full name followed by the acronym or abbreviation in square brackets.
Also follow this with a comma, and a space - the space is important to get your citation looking correct.
Click OK to save your changes

screenshot showing Prefix field containing full organisation name, followed by abbreviation inside square brackets, followed by comma and space

Your first in-text citation will look like this:

3. Fixing every subsequent citation manually

Click once on each in-text citation. The background will turn a pale grey (depending on your Word settings).
In the EndNote toolbar ribbon, select Edit & Manage Citation(s)
In the Formatting drop-down, choose Exclude Author. This completely hides the current form of the author (the corporate name).
In the Prefix field, type the author format as you want it to look, i.e. the acronym or abbreviation, followed by a comma and a space. Click OK to save.

screenshot showing Prefix field with acronym, followed by a a comma and space

Your in-text citation will look like this:

screenshot showing acronym version of corporate author in the in-text citation in a Word document

The reference list remains unaffected, showing the full corporate name.

Advantages

Relatively easy and relatively fast. You can see the acronyms as you work.

Moderately flexible.

Disadvantages

You end up with a reference list that is no longer 100% APA style compliant.

Fixing this creates a document that is no longer connected to EndNote, so you cannot use EndNote for further referencing work in that document.

1. Create your reference as normal

Use a comma after any corporate name.

screenshot of EndNote showing Author field filled with an example ended by a comma

2. Create an acronym mini-reference

Create another EndNote reference with the corporate acronym as the author, the appropriate year, and See corporate full name as the title.

screenshot showing EndNote reference with only the title, year, and author fields filled in, author field using acronym only

3. Fixing the very first in-text citation manually

Use the normal EndNote reference to insert the first citation for the reference.
Single click on the first citation. The background will turn a pale grey (depending on your Word settings).

animated GIF showing how clicking an in-text citation changes its background colour

In the EndNote tab of the Word toolbar ribbon, select Edit & Manage Citation(s)

In the Formatting drop-down, choose Exclude Author. This completely hides the current form of the author.
In the Prefix field, type the author format as you want it to look, including both the corporate full name followed by the acronym in square brackets.
Also follow this with a comma, and a space - the space is important to get your citation looking correct.

screenshot showing Prefix field containing full organisation name, followed by abbreviation inside square brackets, followed by comma and space

Your in-text citation will look like this:

screenshot showing in-text citation with full organisation name followed by abbreviation in square brackets, and year

4. Use the EndNote acronym mini-reference for all other citations except the first one

screenshot showing section of Find & Insert dialog box with acronym mini-reference highlighted for insertion

Your in-text reference will look like this:

screenshot showing acronym version of corporate author in the in-text citation in a Word document

Clean up to fully match APA style

The above steps will add an extra mini-reference into your reference list, looking like:

screenshot of reference list in Word, indicating mini-reference with corporate acronym as author

This is not correct APA style, so it really should be removed.

5. Convert your Word document to plain text

If your file is located on local storage (e.g. your hard drive or an external USB drive), this will create another copy of your Word document with all the referencing retained as plain text, no longer connected to EndNote. Your original document will remain connected to EndNote for further referencing work.

Warning: If your file is located on a network-based storage (e.g. OneDrive), this will disconnect your current document from EndNote while retaining all formatting. You will not be able to reconnect it to EndNote for further referencing, so make a backup for safety.

Save your current document.
On the EndNote tab of the Word ribbon toolbar, click on Convert Citations and Bibliography
From the drop-down, click Convert to Plain Text

screenshot indicating Convert to Plain Text choice on convert drop-down

You might see an option for creating a backup copy of your document (if your document is on OneDrive, for example). If you have already made a backup of your document, press Continue. Otherwise, Cancel and make a backup copy. The backup copy will retain connections to EndNote, while all connection to EndNote will be lost in your current document.
If your document is on local storage (e.g. your hard drive), you will see an information box telling you that it will automatically cerate a new document, without any connection to EndNote but retaining all formatting.
The result will be a document which no longer has any connection to EndNote, which you can edit freely.

6. Clean up

Delete the extra See reference from reference list of the plain text document.

Advantages

Fast. Easy if you are comfortable with some technical details.

Disadvantages

You don't see the acronyms until the end of your work.

You end up with a document that is no longer connected to EndNote for further referencing work.

1. Create your reference as normal.

Use a comma after any corporate name.

screenshot of EndNote showing Author field filled with an example ended by a comma

2. Insert full citations for all cases.

Ignore that none of them use the acronym at this stage.

3. Convert to plain text.

If your file is located on local storage (e.g. your hard drive or an external USB drive), this will create another copy of your Word document with all the referencing retained as plain text, no longer connected to EndNote. Your original document will remain connected to EndNote for further referencing work.

Warning: If your file is located on a network-based storage (e.g. OneDrive), this will disconnect your current document from EndNote while retaining all formatting. You will not be able to reconnect it to EndNote for further referencing, so make a backup for safety.

Save your current document.
On the EndNote tab of the Word ribbon toolbar, click on Convert Citations and Bibliography
From the drop-down, click Convert to Plain Text

screenshot indicating Convert to Plain Text choice on convert drop-down

You might see an option for creating a backup copy of your document (if your document is on OneDrive, for example). If you have already made a backup of your document, press Continue. Otherwise, Cancel and make a backup copy. The backup copy will retain connections to EndNote, while all connection to EndNote will be lost in your current document.
If your document is on local storage (e.g. your hard drive), you will see an information box telling you that it will automatically cerate a new document, without any connection to EndNote but retaining all formatting.
The result will be a document which no longer has any connection to EndNote, which you can edit freely.

4. Make global changes

In your plain-text document, use Word to search and replace the corporate name with the corporate acronym.

Click Replace on the Home tab of the Word toolbar ribbon.

screenshot of a segment of the Word toolbar, Home tab, indicating the Replace link

Replace the full corporate name with the acronym or abbreviation. Click Replace All to change every occurrence in the document. Alternatively, use the Replace and Find Next buttons to step through the document and replace (or skip) individual occurrences.

screenshot showing Word's find and replace dialog box, showing full corporate name to find and acronym to replace it with, with Replace All button highlighted

5. Correct the first citation.

Change the first in-text citation back to have the organisation name in full, followed by the acronym in square brackets.

screenshot showing in-text citation with full organisation name followed by abbreviation in square brackets, and year

6. Correct any use of the full corporate name in the text

All versions of the full corporate name, in the text or in citations, will have been converted. If you use the full corporate name anywhere in the text (not just in citations), you will need to change it back.