Duplicates deleted not merged causing problems for final draft of Phd thesis

Hi

You guys have been very helpful in the past so just wondering if you can help with a solution to this major end-of-PhD referencing issue I have ended up with.

1. While my 100,000 word thesis was being edited over the past two weeks, I worked on references in a separate document not realising the problems it would create.
2. I had many incomplete Zotero entries in the 300 or more references I had entered over the past four years. My aim was to revise the detail so the intext references would refresh with the correct detail and the bibliography would refresh to an accurate list of references.
3. I had multiple duplicates (probably around 80-100), which I deleted (without merging, as I did not realise this was possible/would be a problem).
4. I have returned to the primary document - now edited and many of the intext references are deleted duplicates (I don't know how many or which ones).
5. This means the bibliography is incomplete and incorrect and many intext references are now no longer in Zotero.

What is the solution?
I can't re-enter every reference to get the non-duplicate, correctly entered reference. I tried but with the 2-5 minute delay in entering each reference, this is not feasible.

Is the only solution to insert references manually intext and to do the bibliography manually?

I look forward to your response on this.

Elroy
  • I see two options
    1. You split the thesis into smaller segments and then reinsert the references ( which will be faster of course)
    2. You put all items cited in the bibliography in a collection and create the bibliography from there, just pasting it into the document

    1. is likely slower, 2. has a higher risk of you missing a reference in the bibliography
  • Hi Adam

    Thanks for your response. I don't think I want to risk pulling it apart at this late stage. I'm interested in what you mean by 2. and how this would affect intext and bibliographic references?

    The option I am considering is unlinking the references, manually editing the intext refs and the bibliography: I have a complete copy of the bibliography from pre-proofing and could insert it unlinked, confident that all the references are there. I also have a copy of the intext references complete.Once I check the intext references, as long as they are cited correctly, it doesn't matter whether they are the deleted duplicates or not.

    Elroy
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