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This page contains answers to common questions, along with some
useful tips
and tricks.
- Citation Checker reports a discrepancy between a citation and
a reference, but they look the same to me. Why?
- The names in the citation and the References are the same,
but Citation Checker still reports a discrepancy. Why?
- Why doesn't Citation Checker fix my errors?
- I found a mistake in a reference, but Citation Checker never
mentioned it. Why not?
- Citation Checker complains that there must be a section
headed by the term "References". My paper uses the term
"Bibliography" (or "Literature Cited") instead. What can I do?
- On the report form, most of the buttons are grayed out and I
cannot get a discrepancies report. Why not?
- The manuscript I am preparing is required to use Chicago
style or MLA style, rather than APA style. Will Citation Checker work?
- Citation Checker really ought to (do something it doesn't do
at the moment). Why doesn't it do what I want?
- I would like Citation Checker to appear on a WORD menu, so
that I could run it just by clicking. What do I need to do?
- In my paper, I presented an example of a source that reinforced my
perspective, and Citation Checker thought my Latin abbreviation "eg" was
part of the author's name. Doesn't Citation Checker speak Latin?
- The discrepancies report shows some names differently from the
Citations in Manuscript report and the Alphabetic Citations report. Why?
- Citation Checker seems confused about a surname with two
parts. It is acting as though the cited author is two people. Why is the program
so insensitive?
- I cited a personal communication I had with a Very Important
Psychologist. Why did Citation Checker not acknowledge this citation?
- Two papers written by the same authors within a single year were in my References list, but
I only cited one of them. However, Citation Checker let me get way with this
error. Is the program soft on duplicates?
- Citation Checker claims that some of my references that are not cited in the paper. But I can see them in my manuscript, tucked away in footnotes and/or tables and/or appendices. Is Citation Checker blind?
- On which versions of WORD does Citation Checker work?
- How will updates be made available?
- What new features appeared in Version 2.1, 2.2,
2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4?
- Citation Checker was in my Tools Menu previously, but now
it has disappeared. How can I get it back?
- My colleagues are jealous of my perfect citations and are begging me to give them the program. What can I do to avoid those glares?
- Citation Checker reports that "An error condition has arisen that prevents program execution." What can I do about that?
- Citation Checker worked fine when I first installed it, but now it doesn't. What happened?
- Citation Checker complains that it cannot find an Author Notes page or a Table page or a Figure Caption page. I haven't done those pages yet and just want to make sure the manuscript is in good shape before I go on.
The spelling of authors' names must be exactly the same. Look very
carefully for letter transpositions within names, the most common and
hard-to-see kind of error.
If you use an abbreviation in the citation, the program may not recognize
its connection to the spelled-out form in the references. Citation Checker
knows some well-known acronyms, such as APA or CDC, but its vocabulary is
limited.
Citation Checker is very fussy about punctuation. In the references, every
author's surname must be followed by a comma, and each of the author's
initials must be followed by a period. Names must be separated by a comma, and
the surname of the last author must be preceded by an ampersand. These rules follow
APA style.
If there is a discrepancy, the program does not know which form is
correct. By design, Citation Checker never changes the manuscript.
Sometimes the author will be right and the program will be wrong.
Citation Checker looks only at the first sentence in a reference, the text
up to and including the date of publication. It will not see that you have
"improved" upon the title of an article or misspelled the journal's name.
Citation Checker locates the references section by searching for a "References" heading. If your paper does not have that heading,
temporarily insert the term "References" on a separate line below
the alternate term you are using.
Citation Checker did not find a valid license in the folder in which it is
located. The program's functionality is severely limited without a license. If
you purchased a license, make sure the license file sent to you (CitationChecker.lic)
has been copied into the same folder
as the program.
If you have not yet purchased a license, you may do so from the Test
+ Purchase page.
No. The other styles employ a different structure. Citation Checker works
only on papers written in APA style. If you want to get the benefits of
checking, prepare your manuscript in APA style, then convert after it is
perfect. Although that process sounds inefficient, I personally find it much
easier to write a paper using APA style. After the manuscript has been
checked, employ the conversion module.
It doesn't perform that function either because the programmer didn't think of it or
because it was too difficult to implement. Why not pass along your idea
through the suggestion page?
That can only occur for WORD versions through 2003 (Word
2007 abolished menus.) The program file (CitationChecker.dot) and the license file (citationchecker.lic) need to be
in the Office\Startup folder (by default, Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office (or Office xx)\Startup. CitationChecker will then appear as an
item in the Tools Menu. Just click that menu item while the manuscript is
active.
Citation Checker is as pretentious as any program. It loves Latin and
Greek. But it is very picky about punctuation. To maintain consistency
with APA style, Citation Checker requires you to use the correct form [e.g.],
[cf.}, [i.e.,], [viz.,] or [et al.] within parenthetical expressions.
The discrepancies report may look weird if you incorrectly
omit an expected period in any of these.
The two lists of citations, Citations in Manuscript and Alphabetic
Citations, will incorrectly report an author’s first name if that is
included in the manuscript. For example, if the text is “according to
David Weiss (2004), random...“, then the citation list will include “David
Weiss”. This occurs because the program allows for individual authors
to have several names, e.g., American Psychological Association (2003). The discrepancies report handles this case correctly, finding a match if Weiss
(2004) appears in the reference list.
A family name with multiple words and no hyphen, such as
Della Rocca or
Feldman Barrett, is mishandled if the citation includes co-authors. The
program thinks Della and Rocca are separate individuals (and the author has
forgotten the comma that should separate them). This is an instance where the user knows more
than the program, and should ignore the program's complaint.
A hyphenated name with two parts is correctly treated as one name.
Common prefixes that do not occur by themselves as family names, such as
De, Mac, or von, are handled correctly.
Personal communications cited within the manuscript are not reported in the
citations list because APA style does not include them in the References list.
If the reference list includes two articles by the same author in the same
year, the program will report both are matched even if only one is cited. To be sure that discrepancies are reported accurately, use the 2004a, 2004b
format for both citations and references, as called for by the APA manual.
Citation Checker does know to look for additional citations after the reference list. It resumes searching after it encounters the Author Note page, or an appendix, or a table, or a list of figure captions. If none of those delimiters is in the manuscript, Citation Checker will not realize the References are over. You may temporarily insert a heading like "Figure Captions" to
help
Citation Checker understand your intention.
Citation Checker works "perfectly" for the 2000, 2003,
2007 and 2010 versions. It works
with WORD 97, but a few harmless error messages may appear when the program
opens (just say OK to any objections).
If a new version of WORD generates problems, an updated version of
Citation Checker will replace the version available on the Test
+ Purchase page. Personalized
licenses for earlier versions will still work. There will never be an
additional charge for program upgrades.
If the program is updated, the new version will replace the version that is
offered through the Test & Purchase page.
Check the page periodically to see if the version available there is a later
one than yours. A valid personalized license will unlock any version of the
program. That is, a purchaser is entitled to free updates forever.
Actually, there were no new features in Version 2.1. Version 2.1 corrected
bugs in the handling of some unlikely corporate authors and authors whose names include two (possibly uncapitalized) prefixes, such as Von der Porten or van der Pligt. Version
2.2 allows the program to ignore editorial markup characters (< and >) and
to treat "this volume" in the same way it treats "in press". The latter feature is useful for processing a book containing chapters that cite one
another. Version 2.3 corrected a bug that could cause the program to choke
if the manuscript contained an unlikely violation of APA style. Version
2.4 corrected how the program handles a name with the suffix "II".
Version 2.5 allows the program to handle names that begin with certain
characters not used in English, such as Æ or Ö.
Because the programmer's knowledge of Icelandic and well, anything but
English, is somewhat limited, it would be helpful if users who encounter
names that are processed incorrectly were to let me know. Version 2.6
improved the program's handling of corporate authors, including governmental
and international agencies. Version 2.7 corrected a minor bug for authors
whose names include prefixes. Version 2.8 added searches of embedded
footnotes and endnotes for citations. Embedded footnotes and endnotes are
not used by journals that follow APA style, but might appear in a book that
otherwise conformed to APA guidelines.
Version 3.0 introduced the
Conversion Module.
Version 3.1 included a minor modification
of the Conversion Module, allowing the program to process non-numerical page
numbers used for supplements (such as S21) correctly. Versions 3.2 added more
conversion options, and also fixed several minor bugs. Version 3.3 fixed an
"interesting" bug in which Editors whose second letter of their surname was
an "a" would not be converted at all, and also added a new option needed for
a journal that does not use commas after surnames. An additional preset was
added. In addition to fixing some minor conversion bugs, Version 3.4 made
saving a conversion configuration a little more convenient and added a new
parameter that allows a book title to precede editor's names, as is called
for by some political science journals.
Version 3.5 fixed a minor bug in the
routine that checks whether the references are alphabetized, so that it
copes a little better with authors who share a surname. It also allowed the
program to run when nothing follows the references (APA style calls for an
Author Note, but some journals use "almost APA style" and omit that
requirement).
The Tools Menu got messed up when you installed another program that insinuated itself there. Now your Normal.dot (the default template,
which automatically is attached to all documents) has lost the memory. You will have to put it back. The operation is a little complicated, but certainly easier than,
say,
doing an analysis of variance with SPSS.
To do that, close all documents, then open Normal.dot. It is located in the User Templates folder, whose location can be found by looking at Tools, Options, File Locations. Once you have Normal.dot open, click on the Tools Menu, then click Customize. Next, click the Commands tab, then click Macro
in the list on the left side.
Look at the list on the right. Click and hold down the mouse on Project1.CitationChecker.ScanDocument. Drag that selection to the Tools Menu at the top of the screen. When the Tools Menu opens, drag the selection into the list, anywhere you like. Once it is in place, you can right-click to Rename the macro.
Adjust the name to Citation Checker. Save Normal.dot, then exit WORD. The next time you open WORD, Citation Checker will be in the Tools Menu where you placed it.
I am proud of you for maintaining the integrity of the personalized license. Perhaps the best way to help your colleagues is to recommend that the organization purchase a site license. Please see the
Test and Purchase page.
The rest of the error message contains the key. The program indicates which reference it is having difficulty with ("is choking on"). It may be something small, such as a missing comma or ampersand, or it may be an unexpected character in the author's name. The program only looks as far as the date (which must be surrounded by parentheses) within the reference, so usually it is finding something odd about the way the names are typed. A typing error is the most common explanation, but also the program is very strict about following APA style. Sometimes references imported from a web site are incorrect,
even though they look fine to you; for example, the web site may have
substituted an "I" (a capital I) or a '1" (the numeral one) for an "l" (the
small letter pronounced el), and you cannot see the difference. The easiest
way to check is to retype the name and date.
That sounds like what my wife says about me. The problem may
have arisen if you clicked OK when WORD said something like "Changes have
been made to the template. Do you want to save those changes?" (Always say
NO). Fortunately, the Citation Checker problem is easily overcome. Simply
download the current version from the website, and replace the corrupted one
with that.
As the error message explains, the program needs one of those headings to know when the references section has ended. An APA-style paper will always have at least one of them when submitted to a journal. If yours is not ready or you won't need any of them, just put in a blank page with the heading Author Notes while you are working on the references.
Version 3.5 allows the program to run without any of these pages (see the
answer to Question 18).
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