Will style change also change bibiography format?

Hello --

I have set APA style in my draft document so I can see the citations I've entered. My document needs to be submitted in SAGE Vancouver style (citation numbers in superscript).

Now I'm ready to generate and proofread a bibliography. What I'm planning to do is
- generate the bibliography in APA style
- review bibliography
- make changes (via editing metadata in Zotero and Edit Citation in the plug-in -- NOT on the document)
- refresh and save document

Then, if I simply change the document style to SAGE Vancouver, will it automagically reformat the citations and bibliography, or do I have to generate the bibliography again in SAGE Vancouver style?

If the latter, I can simply delete the bibliography and re-generate it, correct?
  • While generally this will work, in this step:
    - make changes (via editing metadata in Zotero and Edit Citation in the plug-in -- NOT on the document)
    Don't use edit citation. Not sure what types of changes you were planning to make, but you should never edit citations when planning to use or using a numeric style.

    Anything you can't change in Zotero proper, you'll want to fix in a copy of the document after you've generated the bibliography and unlinked citations.
  • "Don't use edit citation. Not sure what types of changes you were planning to make, but you should never edit citations when planning to use or using a numeric style."

    I'm confused about this. Based on prior advice here, I set my style to APA so I could see the citations while I write. I was advised to convert to SAGE Vancouver later. The entire paper was created this way. I've used Edit Citation many times to change the citations.

    I've been using Refresh and it appears to be updating the APA-style bibliography correctly.

    Are you saying I will not be able to convert the style from APA to SAGE Vancouver (a numeric style), retaining citations and bibliography?

    After I convert to SAGE Vancouver, will the document at least retain the citations? I can re-generate the bibliography.

    Why would I want to unlink citations? Is this the usual procedure in a final draft?

  • But what types of changes are you making and how exactly? I can't think of a single edit to a citation you'd want to make if the end result is just going to be a number.

    - If you're using prefix and suffix, citations will look wrong once converted since that's not used in numeric formats typically (any commentary should be in the text)
    - If you're using page numbers, those just won't be displayed, so no harm, but also no good
    - If you're using the editor in the classic citation dialog, you'll actually prevent the conversion to numbers, causing all sorts of chaos, so that'd be ... bad

    You should always unlink citation (in a copy; always keep an intact version) before sending a document to a publisher to avoid conflicts with other their automated manuscript processing.
  • I have sets of multiple citations. I have added, changed, or deleted citations within the sets. I'm not using prefix or suffix.

    All I want to do is convert plain vanilla citations and bibliography from one style to another.

    Thanks for the tip about unlinking citations before submissions. I found instructions here http://askus.library.wwu.edu/faq/116777
  • I have sets of multiple citations. I have added, changed, or deleted citations within the sets. I'm not using prefix or suffix.
    That's fine. It's just the things in the bubble popup that wouldn't make sense for a numeric style.

    As long as you haven't manually edited citations in the document, changing the style will update the citations and bibliography. There's no need to delete the bibliography first (though there's also no need to add the bibliography ahead of time).
    Thanks for the tip about unlinking citations before submissions. I found instructions here
    No, there's no need to follow those instructions, and they shouldn't be recommending that. Zotero provides an "Unlink Citations" button for this purpose.
  • Thank you. I also found the "Unlink Citations" command in my Zotero plug-in, where it's called "Remove Field Codes."

    I am well on my way to submitting my paper by March 15.
  • Yes, in the plugin for Word 2008, which I believe you said you're using, it was called "Remove Field Codes". It's called "Unlink Citations" in current versions.
  • I have sets of multiple citations. I have added, changed, or deleted citations within the sets. I'm not using prefix or suffix.
    Ah yes, sorry for causing false alarm. I hadn't thought of this as editing citations, but it obviously is and as dstillman says will work perfectly well when converting to Vancouver.
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