Once you have added several references to EndNote, it should look something like this:
There are several things you can do with this library:
1. The Show Search Panel option brings up search boxes to search in your library for authors, titles, keywords, etc. This is helpful once you have more than a couple dozen or so references, so you don't have to look through a long list to find one or a few specific references.
2. Groups allows you to subdivide your library. Click "Groups" in the main menu to create and name a new group, then your group name will appear in the left panel under "My Groups." Click to select one or more references in your full library then drag them onto the name of a group in "My Groups" to put them in a group. Click on the name of a group under "My Groups" to see all and only the references in that group.
3. Click to select one of your references, and then click the "References" tab in the panel on the right to see the full editable record for that reference. Here you can see and edit author, title, date, publisher, etc. There are also fields where you can add research notes or your own searchable terms, labels, or categories.
4. Click the "Preview" tab in the panel on the right to see how a selected reference will look in a bibliography, in the default citation style.
5. The default citation style -- in this case, APA 6th (American Psychological Association,, commonly used in many social sciences and sciences) -- is indicated toward the upper left corner, and you can change it by clicking the down arrow to the right of the default style. Clicking that down arrow will bring up a very long list of possible styles to choose from. When you choose a different default style, the Preview panel for each record will change accordingly.
6. When you import a new reference or set of references into EndNote, it will display only those newly "Imported References." This gives you a chance to check and edit one or a few new references without having to find them in a long list of references you already have. To see your full list of references, click the "All References" option in the left panel.
7. You can Edit a citation style if you need to. This way, if you want to change something about the way a citation style is displayed, you can make the change once rather than having to edit each separate entry in your bibliography. This can come in handy if you download citations from different databases that capitalize titles differently; some databases capitalize titles sentence style (so only the first word is capitalized), some capitalize titles headline style (so all words are capitalized), and a few put titles in all capital letters. If that results in an inconsistently formatted bibliography, you can use the "Edit Output Styles" function to format the "Bibliography" with a consistent style of "Title Capitalization."
