Common Causes of Query Insertion
Citation to another article: Citation Matching incorrectly sees citations to figures and tables in other articles, such as “See figure 1 in Smith (1999)”, as part of the current article. Queries about such citations are incorrect and should be removed by deleting the Word comment containing them.
Incorrect styling: Citation Matching relies on correct styling of paragraphs. Please make sure the figure legends and table titles are styled correctly if you see erroneous queries.
Harvard (Name-Date) Citation Matching
Incorrect spelling: If a name is misspelled, a match will not be made. Be sure to look at all names (not just the first) and accented characters.
Incorrect character: For names with apostrophes, make sure the same type of apostrophe is used in both the citation and the reference. For example, “D’Aria” is not the same name as “D’Aria” (one uses a right single quote, and the other an apostrophe).
Incorrect date: If the dates are not identical, a match will not be made.
Incorrect author processing: If authors in a reference have names that Bibliographic References is unable to correctly process, the reference will be given a type of <unknown>. If the highlighting of the authors is incorrect in the reference, but the names and dates are correct, such queries are erroneous and should be removed by deleting the Word comment containing them.
Mismatch in number of authors: If the number of authors found in the reference does not match the citation style, then no match will be made. The following cases will not match and will cause a query to be inserted:
Reference | Incorrect Citation | Reason |
|---|
Smith, A. (1999) Article Title... | (Smith and Jones, 1999) | Only one author is listed in the reference, but the citation indicates two authors |
Smith, A. (1999) Article Title... | Smith et al., 1999) | Only one author is listed in the reference, but the citation indicates at least three authors |
Smith, A. and Jones, B. (1999) Article Title... | (Smith, 1999) | Two authors are listed in the reference, but the citation indicates only one author |
Smith, A. and Jones, B. (1999) Article Title... | (Smith et al., 1999) | Two authors are listed in the reference, but the citation indicates at least three authors |
Smith, A., Jones, B., and Lee, C. (1999) Article Title... | (Smith, 1999) | Three (or more) authors are listed in the reference, but the citation indicates only one author |
Smith, A., Jones, B., and Lee, C. (1999) Article Title... | (Smith and Jones, 1999) | Three (or more) authors are listed in the reference, however the citation indicates two authors |
Initials included in citations: Citations that include author initials will not be handled correctly. For example, “See A. Smith and B. Jones (1999)” will not be matched. It must be edited as “See Smith and Jones (1999)”. If this style creates conflicts with multiple references, letters (1999a and 1999b) should be added.
Active citations: Active citations in text—such as “Smith and Jones, 1999, proved in their experiment”—will not be matched. Either the entire citation or the year must be enclosed in parentheses (or [brackets] if nested inside parentheses).
Numbered Citation Matching (any style)
All references must be numbered in sequential order.
There may not be any unnumbered references.
All citations must use the same numbered style.
Multiple numbered reference lists in a single document: Occasionally, editors will have multiple numbered reference lists within a single Word document. If this occurs (usually due to a letter and a reply), contact support about how to handle this situation.
Blank lines: No empty paragraphs are allowed in the reference section.
Extra returns: Make sure that each reference is contained in a single paragraph. Extra returns in the middle of a reference will cause problems.
Inappropriate leading text: Within brackets or parentheses, most text preceding numbers will cause failures. Exceptions are the common words “e.g.”, “see”, “ref”, “refs”, and “reference”.
Inappropriate trailing text: After the first number, additional text about pages, tables, figures, or an appendix is permitted. If other text is found, the number inside of brackets or parentheses is not treated as a citation, as in “(8-12 μm)”.
eXtyles carefully checks superscript numbers to ensure that they are citations and not part of mathematical expressions:
Superscript 2 and 3: Superscript 2 and 3 appear so often in simple inline math that they are handled as special cases. These superscripts are treated as a citation only if they are immediately preceded by punctuation or they are part of a citation range. The following two examples are valid citations: “This is a simple citation.2” and “This is a simple citation range.2–4”
Accepted superscript numbers: The following cases are always assumed to be citations:
Rejected superscript numbers: The following cases are always assumed not to be citations:
A single italic letter immediately prior to a superscript number
Any Greek letter immediately prior to a superscript number
The number “10” immediately prior to a superscript number, as this is typically a number raised to a power of 10 (e.g., 107)
Any mathematical character (such as +, –, or /) immediately prior to a superscript number
