Reference appears in Bibliography but not added in citations

ykita
Dear all,

I use Windows and Zotero in Word 2016, and I have two problems.

First, I see a reference in the bibliography that I do not use anymore in a citation in the text. I have tried refreshing the bibliography and i still see it, this is creating an item useless [30] and it is changing the citation orders consequently.

Secondly, I suspect the reference numbers in the bibliography are not the same as the ones in the citations in the text. I checked randomly two citations with the button "add/edit citation" and when I tapped enter the number changed.

I have more than 100 references so i dont want to check them all manually and I already have checked the box "automatically update citations" in preferences.

Could you help me with this please?

Thanks,
Jessica
  • adomasven
    edited May 25, 2020
    Secondly, I suspect the reference numbers in the bibliography are not the same as the ones in the citations in the text. I checked randomly two citations with the button "add/edit citation" and when I tapped enter the number changed.
    If you had "automatically update citations" unchecked previously then this behaviour would have been normal.

    If you're sure you have a phantom citation, it could be because some citation got corrupt and while no longer has any visible text in your document, its underlying field code is still there. You can enable word field code display, and look for the citation that way.
  • ykita
    Hi, thanks for your help. Actually, it was already checked so I unchecked it and checked it back again not the citation numbers are not up to date.

    The first problem is now solved but I still have the problem with the citations.

    Any other helpful idea about that?
  • damnation
    Can you switch to an author-date citation style and then back to the numeric one?
  • ykita
    it works! Thanks a lot!
  • ykita
    Dear, the problem appeared again, switching the style does not work anymore. Can you help me please? I need to submit the article this Friday.
    Thanks,
    Jessica
  • adomasven
    Could you describe in full once again what the problem that you're having is, what have you tried in troubleshooting it and what happened for each attempt to fix it?
  • ykita
    Sure. I have Zotero installed on Windows and the Zotero plugin in Word 2016.
    I have a document where I am using the ACM transactions CHI citation style.

    The first problem is that I have a reference in the bibliography that is not used in a citation. I deleted that reference at some point (from Zotero and from a citation) but it still appears.

    Moreover, the second problem is that, I started checking some citations to see if the error was there and when clicking on the Add/edit citation I noticed the citation number changed. This means the citations numbers are not all updated according to the bibliography numbers.

    Debugging:
    I tried changing the citation style, I tried deleting and adding again the bibliography.
    I unchecked and checked back again the "automatically update citations" box, I also tried refreshing, closing and opening again word and zotero, restarting the computer, I checked the reference in Zotero and it does not exist there anymore.
  • adomasven
    edited May 27, 2020
    Moreover, the second problem is that, I started checking some citations to see if the error was there and when clicking on the Add/edit citation I noticed the citation number changed. This means the citations numbers are not all updated according to the bibliography numbers.
    Regarding this, the numbers will only be correct if automatic citation updates are enabled, so if they are not you can disregard this issue unless it persists after a refresh.
    The first problem is that I have a reference in the bibliography that is not used in a citation. I deleted that reference at some point (from Zotero and from a citation) but it still appears.
    The simplest way to fix this would be to enable word field code display as suggested in my previous comment and then look for the "phantom" field code. You can also use Ctrl-F (or Cmd-F on macOS) to search for citation metadata, e.g. authors. If you cannot fix the problem this way, you should go through the debugging broken documents steps.
  • ykita
    Thanks again for your feedback.

    As I said, yes the second problem persists even after refreshing, disabling and enabling again the automatic citation updates (because it was already enabled)

    The first problem, I can now see the code, what should I do now?
    The problem is I have the author in several references.
  • damnation
    Can you diffetlrentiate between the phantom one and the good one(s)?
    You'll need to delete that code you can see now as that is making it add it to the bibliography despite not appearing in the text anymore.
  • ykita
    I found it in the code, thanks.
  • adomasven
    Best bet is to fully remove the whole citation/code where the item appears and reinsert the citation if it had other cited items that you want to keep. If the second problem persists you should follow the debugging broken documents instructions linked above.
  • ykita
    I found where the problem comes from.

    Actually the citation style does not include a space between references when several are quoted: [33,34]. At some point, I added the space in between [33, 34] and also changed some references in the rest of the document.

    Then when I clicked refresh I was requested if I want to update BUT I WILL LOSE THE MODIFICATIONS. I think I clicked no sometimes because I really could not understand the sentence in the pop-up zotero presents and now all those citations are not updated.

    I guess the solution is to add/edit citation per citation to be sure they are correct and really at the end just add the commas.

    I leave here the comment in case somebody else has this problem or if you know another workaround.

    Thanks.
  • bwiernik
    Don't manually edit the citations like that. That's the problem here.

    When you click that you didn't want citations to update, Zotero stops manually updating them (as it says in the popup).

    If you want the citations to have a space between the numbers, the citation style file needs to be changed. What journal are you submitting to, and what citation style are you using?
  • ykita
    Right.

    journal CSCW guidelines here: https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/reference-formatting

    in zotero ACM Transactions on Human- Computer Interaction
  • dustin.wyatt.davis
    The original post is over two years old, but I just discovered how to find and delete the phantom reference.

    I had a phantom reference that was not showing as a Field.

    SOLUTION:

    Microsoft Word for Mac Version 16.68 (22121100)

    1. In Microsoft Word, navigate to Preferences, View, and change Field shading to "Always."
    2. In View, check the box "Field codes instead of values." This setting displays the metadata of every Field, even those that do not show as a field.
    3. Use Cmd + F to search for a piece of metadata unique to the phantom reference in your Bibliography. I searched the first author's last name to find and delete the hidden Field.
    4. Refresh your document, and the phantom reference should be gone.

    I hope this helps someone!

    Kind regards,
    Dustin
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