EndNote provides thousands of output styles
but sometimes they don't have the one you need.
When that happens, you can edit individual styles, 
or even create a new style.
I'm going to submit an article
to the journal new surgery.
The journal has sent me information on
how to format citations in the bibliography.
First, I'll check for the style in my EndNote library.
From the Edit menu, I'll select Output Styles,
then Output Style Manager.
There's no search box on this page,
but you can search by scrolling through the list of names,
or by starting to type the name of the style you're looking for,
which will take you to the right part of the list.
I don't see the style New Surgery in EndNote,
so I'll check EndNote's web site next
by clicking on the Get More on the Web button.
The EndNote program comes with a few hundred of
the most popular styles installed,
but more styles and updated styles can be found here.
To find a style, I'll type the name in the Style or Journal Name box,
and click Apply.
Unfortunately, there's no style listed for my journal.
Finally, you can check the journal's web site.
Some publishers will post a file that you can download.
But I don't have that option.
Since I didn't find the style I need,
I'll have to edit an existing EndNote style.
From the Author Instruction information, I can see that 
the New Surgery style
uses in-text citations
with the bibliography number in parentheses,
uses periods for name initials,
and the final page number is abbreviated.
I want to choose a style that is close to what I need.
This can be an earlier version of the style,
or an existing style that has a similar citation format.
To find a similar style, I'll go the the EndNote web site,
and use the dropdown list at Citation Style
to find Non-superscripted number.
I'll also add Surgery to the Journal name search box
to narrow my options.
You can also search by the publisher.
Then I'll click Apply.
I see that BMC Surgery is listed,
and I remember that it's on my copy of EndNote.
I'm going to see how well it will work.
In EndNote, I'll go back to the Style Manager,
and select BMC Surgery by checking the box to the left of the name.
I'll click the Preview Style button to see how references are formatted.
It looks similar to what I need,
with just a few changes, it should work.
To edit this style, I'll click the Edit button,
and the editing window opens.
The editing menu is on the left.
So that you don't overwrite the style that you're editing,
immediately save it under a new name.
From the File menu, I'll select Save As,
name the style "New Surgery", and click Save.
At the top of the menu are general options that affect the style overall:
anonymous works,
page numbers, journal names, and sections.
At Page Numbers, I'll change the style to 
"Abbreviate the last page number keeping 2 digits" 
by clicking the radio button next to that format.
If you want to use the 3 abbreviation options at Journal Names,
you'll need to import term lists.
You can find instructions on how to do this
in the Using Term Lists video, part two
on our web site.
Next are the different sections for Citations, Bibliography,
Footnotes, and Figures & Tables.
Make changes only in the sections that apply to the style you're using.
For example, if your style uses footnotes,
skip the Citation section.
Under Citations, I'll click Templates
to see what information is given for each citation.
In the New Surgery style, all references are numbered,
and that number is within parentheses.
To change the brackets used in BMC Surgery,
I'll simply highlight each bracket,
and type in a parenthesis, just as I would in a Word document.
Because the "New Surgery" style uses just a bibliography number 
for the in-text citation,
I can safely ignore the rest of the fields
except Numbering.
I'll check that the numbers for citations are consecutive,
and Sort Order, to make sure that
the Same as bibliography option is selected.
If your style uses another format for citations,
for example, author-date,
you'll need to check the rest of the fields under Citations.
Next, under Bibliography, I'll again check the templates, which show 
what information is given for different types of references.
Make sure that the types of references that you'll need are shown here.
If you need to create a new reference type, you can add it
from the Reference type menu.
Look carefully at each reference type to see where and what kind of 
punctuation and spacing is used.
As before, to make changes on this page,
treat it like a Word document.
For example, to change the type style
for the journal title from italic to roman,
highlight the word "Journal",
and click the "I" in the formatting menu above. 
Or use CTRL I to deselect italic type.
Because I'll be using both books and journal articles as references,
I need to check the formatting
of both of these reference types.
Each template looks like what I need in general:
there's a colon after the author names,
journal & book titles are bold, followed by a period, and so on.
Since the punctuation & spacing are the same throughout,
I don't need to make any changes.
The upright lines, known as pipes indicate when fields are optional,
that is, if the information is available 
in a particular record,
it will appear in the bibliography,
but if information isn't there, then it won't appear.
You can also add a field to an existing reference here.
At Author Lists,
I can change how author names are displayed. 
For example, how many names are listed for each reference,
and how "separators," such as commas, are used in a series.
I need to change the number of authors listed for each citation
with multiple authors,
because no more than 3 authors
are to be listed in the New Surgery style.
So under "Abbreviated Author List, First Appearance"
I'll click the second radio button. 
and enter a "4" in the first box,
then a "3" in the next box,
I'll also add a period after et al.
At Author Name I'll check to see how names are formatted 
for the first and subsequent authors,
whether initials or names are used,
and if names are repeated.
I'll use the dropdown menus to select last name comma first name,
for the first author and then for following other authors.
I'll also choose "A period B period" as the format for Initials.
I'll make the same changes to Editor Lists and Editor Name.
At Layout, I can see that it's correct as Bibliography number,
period,
tab.
At Sort order,
I'll check that Order of appearance is selected. 
Then I'll change Title Capitalization
to sentence-style capitalization.
Once you've made all the changes you need to make,
save your new style by clicking the inner X in the upper right,
or using the File/ Save.
If you would like to check to see
that you've made all the changes needed,
go to the Style Manager, search for and select the new style,
and close the style manager.
In your EndNote library,
select the edited style from the style dropdown menu,
highlight a reference,
and check the formatting carefully in the preview window.
If you have any questions about EndNote,
contact the Taubman Health Sciences Library, 
or go to our research guide.
