Unit 4: Tools and Add-ons

Bulk Edit References

RefWorks gives you the option of editing many references at once using the Bulk Edit feature.

This is useful for resolving some formatting problems you may experience, such as missing or unnecessary information from imported references, or incorrect reference types.

You can use the bulk edit feature to add, append, replace, or delete information in referencing fields.

For advice on editing individual references, see our guidance on the Edit References page.

Access the Bulk Edit feature

You can navigate to a selected folder, or select a number of references using checkboxes within a folder, to bulk edit specific references.
Click Tools > Bulk Edit to proceed.

Bulk Edit options

You can choose whether to edit selected references, references within a folder, or your whole library from the options at the top of the screen.
The Bulk edit feature will provide tabs from which you can add, delete, or replace information.

Select references and desired edit function

Add information

You can select the field you wish to edit from the drop-down option. You can also choose to edit certain electronic source fields (such as URL) using the 'Add to electronic source fields' toggle.
Enter the text you wish to add to your chosen field in the text box on the right hand side. You can also specify to keep existing data (meaning the changes only affect empty fields), to overwrite any existing data, or append to existing data (your text is added to the end of any existing data in the field).
Click 'Add' to make your changes.

Delete information

The delete tab lets you select a field to delete existing information from.
This is useful if you have a certain field (e.g. URLs for journal articles that have DOIs) that may not be needed in certain referencing styles.

Authors

The replace tab allows you to replace information in certain tabs, similar to the 'overwrite existing data' in the add tab.
This feature allows you to amend other parts of reference metadata, for example changing the ref type of existing references.

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