RefWorks comes with a variety of output styles for bibliographies, including major citation styles such MLA, APA, and Chicago. However, in some cases, these styles may not fit your needs and you may need to edit your output style.
RefWorks has many different customization features for output styles. You can make stylistic changes, such as underlining or italicizing certain parts of your citation. You can make changes in punctuation or spacing within your citations. Or, you can add or remove fields which display within your citations within your bibliographies or footnotes. This feature can be helpful in creating annotated bibliographies.
In the output style editor, the first thing to note is the "Reference Type" drop box. When you begin altering your style, you will need to edit the style for all of the reference types which may be included in your footnotes or bibliographies. So, if your RefWorks folders contain records for journals articles, magazine articles, books, sections of books, and so forth, you will need to change the style for each of these kinds of resources.
Once you select the Reference Type to edit, you can turn your attention to the windows below. The box on the left, labeled "Fields for this type" are all of the different fields in the reference type which are available for display in your new style. The box on the right, labeled "Output Field Order", shows the fields which actually display in the style and the order which they appear in.
If you select a field in the Output Field Order box, a new window will appear on the right. This window displays your "Field Settings" or all of the different elements in the style for that particular field.
All of the features shown in this window can be edited. This is where you can change spacing or punctuation. Or, you can also change the style or font display within that field.
If you make any changes to the style, you should check at the bottom of your screen which is labeled "Preview of Bibliography Output." This will show you what your final style should look like. It is important to hit the "Update" button after you make each change to see what the results of your edits are in the final style. In the example below, you will see the "Preview" for the style above which has been edited to show the title in bold rather than italics.
You can also add user defined fields to your footnotes and bibliographies which do not appear in the basic style. This can be helpful for creating an annotated bibliography.
Let's say we have used one of our user defined fields (lets say "User 1") to type in notes for an annotated bibliography. We would like the information entered in these fields to display in our RefWorks bibliography. To do this, we will need to edit your output style by adding the "User 1" field at the end of each citation.
Go to the "Fields for this type" box and highlight the field you would like to move and then click on the right arrow between the two boxes (labeled #1). Then you can position that field in your citation by moving the arrows on the right of the "Output Field Order" box (labeled #2).
You may find that after adding additional fields to your citation, that the format is not exactly as you would like. If you look at the Preview window shown below (where we have added our "User 1" field), you will note that the spacing is not correct.
In this case, you will need to go back to the "Field Settings" window for our "User 1" field and add the necessary punctuation and spacing.
As you may notice above, we have added both a period and a space to precede the field in our style. This should correct the problem. To check, click on "Update" in the Preview window at the bottom.
The citation appears correct in our new style. If we had wanted to make the User 1 field show below the citation, you can add a space by imputing "\n" in the "Precede With" box.
Remember, you will have to make changes for all of the field types contained in your bibliography. "Generic" will not change the styles for all of the fields, just records which are labeled "Generic" in your RefWorks folders.
Once you have made your changes, click "Save As" to keep them in your new style. Your new style should appear in red in your output style list when you are ready to create bibliographies.
Editing output styles can be tricky. If you need assistance, please do not hesitate to contact a librarian.
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