Creating Bibliographies with askSam and Citation
By Phil Schnyder, askSam CEO
Citation is an amazing tool for recording and formatting bibliographical information. But many askSam users prefer the flexibility of askSam for keeping their notes, research, and bibliographical information. That's why we created the new askSam/Citation Template which gives you the best of both worlds.
The new askSam/Citation Template lets you record, search, and organize bibliographic and legal information in askSam, and then export and automatically format references using Citation.
Search and Organize References and Sources with askSam
The askSam/Citation Template provides researchers and academic writers with a system for entering, searching, and organizing references and notes. Whether you gather information from books, articles, Web pages, legal sources, journals, or reports, the askSam/Citation Template has entry forms for these different types of information. Each entry form allows you to enter bibliographic information as well as notes.
The Template includes forms for the following types of sources:
Articles in Journals (extended form)
Articles in Popular Periodicals
Books
Books (extended form)
Chapters or Articles in Edited Books
Dissertations
Films
Internet: WWW Journals or magazine articles
Internet: WWW Pages
Legal: Cases, Reporters
Legal: Constitutions
Legal: Ordinances
Legal: Practitioner documents
Legal: Rules of Court, Procedure, Evidence, Ethics
Legal: Slip or Session Laws
Legal: Statutes, Codes (Basic)
Legislative (Bills/Resolutions)
Legislative (Debates)
Legislative (Federal Documents, Reports, Comm. Prints)
Notes
Papers Presented at Conferences
Patents (U.S.)
Personal Communications
Public and Historic Documents
Reports (extended)
Unpublished Papers
Formatting Bibliographies, Reading Lists, and Cites with Citation
Once you've entered your information into askSam, it's easy to transfer the information and format it with Citation. A report in the askSam/Citation Template will export your information to a Citation Data File. Open this in Citation and you'll be able to generate citations in any style you need - MLA, Blue Book, APA, ALWD, and over 1,000 more.
If you need to prepare your paper with references in a different style, you can reformat the citations by rerunning Citation. It's that easy.
Using the askSam Citation Template
1. Click here to download the askSam/Citation Template and copy it to your askSam Template directory (by default, this will be \program files\askSam\askSam5\templates).
2. Create a new askSam file for your information. Choose FILE - NEW and select the askSam Citation Template, and choose the CREATE button.
The SAVE NEW FILE dialog will appear.
3. Enter a name for your file and choose the SAVE button.
Adding a bibliographic entry with the askSam/Citation Template
1. To add an entry, choose DOCUMENT - ADD ENTRY FORM (or click the ADD BIBLIOGRAPHIC ENTRY link).
The ADD ENTRY FORM dialog will appear.
2. Select the appropriate form for the type of source work, and enter the bibliographic information..
If you have any questions as to how to fill out the fields, the Citation On-Line Style Guide has a description of what each field should contain. The fields in the askSam Entry Forms correspond to the fields used in Citation. You can add notes and other information to your documents (in the notes field). askSam also allows you to attach or link to other files.
Note: These notes, attached files, and links are not transferred to Citation - but you will not need these to generate citations and bibliographies.
You'll enter, search, and organize your information in askSam. When you are ready to format your bibliography or insert cites in your document, follow these simple instructions:
Exporting the information to Citation for formatting
1. Choose FILE - EXPORT - REPORT
The RUN REPORT dialog will appear.
2. Select the EXPORT TO CITATION report and choose the RUN button
The EXPORT dialog will appear.
3. Choose the folder where you want to have the Citation Data File and enter a name for the file (including the .CIT extension. For example Bibliography.Cit).
4. Choose the SAVE button.
askSam will export the entire file to a Citation data file with the name you enter.
Writing a formatted list of references with Citation
1. Start your word processor, and then start Citation.
2. Click FILE - OPEN DATAFILE and select the file you just exported from askSam.
3. Click Generate, Bibliography for datafile. Citation will display a dialog asking you to select the style for the bibliography:
4 Use the drop list to select the publishing style format for the bibliography, and then click OK. Citation will write the bibliography to your word processing document.
Using the Preview box for footnotes
If you are working with short papers or legal documents, you'll want to be able to format references for footnotes. It is easy to do this with Citation, simply:
1 Open the paper or brief, and then start Citation and open your datafile.
2 Click View, Preview box to display the current record as a formatted citation.
To change the style for the citations, just click the Style option and choose another style.
3 In your word processor, insert a footnote.
4 On the Citation Preview box, click Insert. Citation will insert the formatted citation into the footnote.
To download the askSam/Citation template mentioned in this article, go to:
http://www.asksam.com/four/surf34/citationtemplate.asp .
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We recommend making modifications in your askSam database and re-exporting to Citation when you are ready to generate cites and bibliographies (rather than updating using Citation). We do not currently have any facilities to transfer the information back from Citation into askSam.
We'll be working on further integration in the future. In the meantime, we hope you'll find this useful. We look forward to your feedback.
Phil Schnyder
askSam CEO
pschnyder@askSam.com
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