Updated Zotero fields and resulting bibliography

vsamarth

I have used Zotero for in-line citations. The references were downloaded from databases, hence, have a lot of format errors. I have now corrected error fields in Zotero, but when I insert the bibliography, it shows the old incorrect formats even though the fields in Zotero continue to show the updated version. What am I missing? Thanks.

bwiernik

Go to the citation in the document and open the citation editor. Click on the blue bubble for the citation and click Open in My Library. Does it take you to the corrected item? If not, this suggests that you have duplicate items. Open the Duplicate Items collection and merge them or search by title and merge the duplicates.

vsamarth

You are right. I have duplications. Thanks for the prompt response!

vsamarth

How do I remove all duplicates from my library? Thanks.

adamsmith

You should have a collection called "Duplicates" at the bottom left of the library. Most duplicates will be in there and you can merge them.

vsamarth

I deleted the duplicates, but the problem persists. Is it because they now reside in the trash? Thanks.

adamsmith

Deleting was the wrong option. You likely deleted the copy you cited in the document. Restore the deleted items from the Zotero trash, then merge them from the duplicates view.

vsamarth

I followed your directions and merged the duplicates after selecting the one I wanted to retain. When I look at the fields in Zotero, they are correct, but when it inserts the bibliography, it is still incorrect. So I emptied the trash, but the problem still persists. I did export the trash before emptying, so I can restore it once again.

Here is an example, which has two problems that I had corrected: First letters are capitalized in the title and there is a period at the end of the title.
Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B., Jeong-Yeon Lee and Podsakoff, N.P. (2003), “Common Method Biases in Behavioral Research: A Critical Review of the Literature and Recommended Remedies.”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 88 No. 5, p. 879.

Even after deleting trash, the title field in Zotero shows me the correct format (copying and pasting from Zotero): "Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies"

adamsmith

Which citation style is this?

If you insert the citation into a fresh document, does it look right?

vsamarth

Emerald, Harvard.

You are right. If I generate a bibliography from my library, it is fine, but if I insert the bibliography in my manuscript, the problem persists even though I 'refreshed' the citations. I figured out the problem. When I insert citations, Zotero asks me "You have modified this citation since Zotero generated it. Do you want to keep your modifications and prevent future updates?
Clicking "Yes" will prevent Zotero from updating this citation if you add additional citations, switch styles, or modify the item to which it refers. Clicking "No" will erase your changes."

Now, the problem is, no matter what I select, yes or no, it relabels my citations as a and b. To prevent this, I kept selecting 'yes,' which is then preventing it from updating the citation, therefore the bibliography :(

It seems my only choice right now is to insert all the citations all over again because refreshing doesn't seem to work.

adamsmith

It's hard to say exactly what you did, but Zotero does store citation information for items in the document. If it doesn't find the item in Zotero anymore, it falls back to that information and there is no easy way of updating this.

This can happen when you delete the original item in your library, when you export and re-import your library, or if you're working with a new Zotero library altogether.

Edit: So yes, you'll need to re-insert citations. If you re-insert a citation, make sure it's re-inserted from under "My Library" and not from under "Cited" in the Word add-in. You can then tell which copy is the one that's actually in your library and only swap out the others.

vsamarth

Reinserting the citations was the only option and it worked. Thanks for your help.