Modifying citations in Word = loss of reference in bibliography?

t.hrynick

I’m revising a paper which has intext citations throughout that I have been added via Zotero. In my revising process, I have manually edited some of these in-text citations to appear differently as a matter of style (and thus if the citations exist in different parts of the paper, they may look different). For instance, I’ve changed this sentence:

One argument positions antibiotics as so entangled in and upholding systems of modern life so as to be regarded as infrastructure (Chandler, 2019).

To this sentence:

Chandler (2019) advances an argument which positions antibiotics as so entangled in and upholding systems of modern life so as to be regarded as infrastructure.

I understand that they won’t get updated if I decide to change the style in which I want all my intext citations to appear, but I don’t intend on changing the style, so I am okay with this. There are a couple of things I'm unclear on however.

When I try to add new references into the text, I am prompted with a window telling me that I have modified another citation. It asks me if I want to keep the modifications which will prevent future updates, in which case I am warned that Zotero won’t be able to update the citation if I add additional ones (by this do they mean I won’t be able to add additional citations to the same sentence, like having two citations next to one another? Ex. (Chandler, 2019; Harris, 2016)), switch styles, or modify the reference to which it refers (on this last point, I assume they mean modify the reference as it appears in the bibliography at the end of the paper?). It does not let me proceed to insert the new citation until I have responded to the message about each previously modified citation, of which, there are many!

If I choose ‘yes’ to keep my modifications to all the changes I made (and thus forego the possibility of Zotero being able to update the citations if I change style, or apparently, its reference in the bibliography), does this prompt Zotero to believe that the reference is no longer in the paper? Will this mean that if I add a new citation and reference and thus need to update the bibliography, that the newly updated bibliography will no longer include the references of citations which I have modified and chosen to keep modifcations of??

Thanks!

damnation

You can suppress the author in order to achieve what you want. Then the citation will also get updated. See: https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_usage

Above documentation might also answer your other questions.

adamsmith

Avoiding to manually modify citations is very much recommended, so do follow damnation's advice and link, but for your specific questions:

by this do they mean I won’t be able to add additional citations to the same sentence, like having two citations next to one another? Ex. (Chandler, 2019; Harris, 2016)), switch styles, or modify the reference to which it refers (on this last point, I assume they mean modify the reference as it appears in the bibliography at the end of the paper?).

Yes to all of these: no adding additional items (without reverting the citation, no switching styles, and no updating the metadata in Zotero (e.g. to fix typos)

Will this mean that if I add a new citation and reference and thus need to update the bibliography, that the newly updated bibliography will no longer include the references of citations which I have modified and chosen to keep modifcations of??

No, Zotero will still know the item is in the bibliography and list it there, so you'd be fine on that count

t.hrynick

Hello, thanks so much to both of you. I've learned a lot from the link damnation posted. I've decided to go back and rejig my citations via Zotero, instead of doing it manually - I didn't realise I could do this. Really good to know the items won't disappear from my bibliography even if I do it manually though. Thanks!