Citation Matching automates the lengthy process of comparing and matching in-text citations with their references, including bibliographic reference entries as well as objects such as figures, tables, and boxes that are called out within the text.

In addition to matching citations and callouts with their references and objects, Citation Matching performs the following tasks automatically:

1. Identifies all in-text bibliographic citations for which there is not a matching reference entry.

2. Identifies all reference entries for which there is not at least one in-text citation.

3. Identifies all figure, table, box, and appendix callouts for which there is not a matching figure, table, box, or appendix title.

4. Identifies all figure legends, box legends, table titles, and footnotes (unlinked and plain text) for which there is not at least one callout.

Each of these issues, if it occurs, is automatically indicated by eXtyles in your document with the insertion of an author query in the form of a Word comment. The actual citations and callouts in the manuscript are indicated with color coding to aid in proofing.

Using Citation Matching

To use Citation Matching:

1. Be sure that you have first run Bibliographic Reference Processing.

2. Select Citation Matching from the eXtyles Advanced Processing menu. You will see a dialog asking you to select the bibliographic citation style used in the document.

3. Select the appropriate style, which for CADTH will be Superscript Numbers (Vancouver superscript)

4. Click OK.

Open

Citation Matching Query Insertion

If eXtyles adds queries during Citation Matching, an alert will appear after processing is complete to indicate the number of queries added. An alert is also shown when queries have not been added to indicate that Citation Matching completed successfully. 

Citation Matching Failures

Citation Matching automatically applies the character style cite_bib to all reference citations in text. Occasionally, eXtyles will fail to automatically apply this style during Citation Matching. In such cases, the character style “cite_bib” should be applied by hand from the Word Styles menu (Home > Styles).

Similarly, Citation Matching automatically applies the character styles cite_fn (for footnotes), cite_fig (for figures), cite_box (for boxes) and cite_tbl (for tables) to all callouts in the text. Occasionally, eXtyles will fail to automatically apply these styles during Citation Matching. In such cases, the appropriate style must be applied by hand from the Word Styles menu to the callout. Citation Matching can then be run again to ensure the accuracy of these hand-applied styles.

Common Causes of Query Insertion

Citation-matching queries may be inserted for many reasons. The following describes common queries that you might encounter after running Citation Matching.

Figure and Table Matching

1. Citation to another article: Citation Matching incorrectly sees citations to figures and tables in other articles, such as “See figure 1 in some external report”, as part of the current document. Queries about such false-positives are incorrect and should be removed by deleting the Word comment.

2. Incorrect styling: Citation Matching relies on correct styling of paragraphs. Make sure the figure legends and table titles are styled correctly if you see erroneous queries.

Numbered Citation Matching (any style)

All numbered (Vancouver) style citations share some similar characteristics. In order for Citation Matching to work correctly, please observe the following rules:

Reference numbering:

• All references must be numbered in sequential order. 

• There may not be any unnumbered references. 

• All citations must use the same numbered style.

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)”.

Numbered Superscript Citation Matching

In addition to the characteristics listed in this section for all numbered citations, 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

This is a simple citation range.^2–4

Accepted superscript numbers: The following cases are always assumed to be citations:

• Punctuation immediately prior to a superscript number 

• A word of four letters or more immediately prior to a superscript number

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