Docs · Writing and submission
Citations and styles
Cite works from the project, switch styles without retyping, and let the reference list render itself.
Inserting a citation
Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + C or /cite opens the picker: search the project's references, look a paper up by DOI or title, or pick from evidence quotations you have already extracted. A citation may point at several works and carry a page or note.
Styles
Vancouver, AMA, APA 7, NEJM, Lancet, BMJ, Nature and Chicago; numeric styles renumber automatically and collapse ranges. Switching style changes every label and the reference list at once.
Integrity
A citation cannot be typed; it always references a record. A work that is later retracted, superseded, corrected or placed under an expression of concern is flagged in a banner at the top of the editor and in the checks: a retraction or a supersession is an error that blocks a checked release, a concern or a correction is a warning. Numbers bound to evidence from that work stop binding, and any release candidate built on it goes stale. Files already exported or sent to a journal are never changed for you — you are told which version is affected and what to do. Removing a work from the project leaves its citations marked unresolved for you to fix.
Recovering citations from imported documents
When you import a Word file with numbered references, the reference list is parsed and numeric markers in the text are re-linked to works matched by DOI, PMID or title. Unmatched ones stay as text with a warning.
Inserting citations
Press ⌘⇧C (or References → Citation) to open the picker. It lists the project's references, everything else in your library and, on demand, a live search of PubMed, OpenAlex and Crossref; a DOI, PubMed ID or PMC ID pasted into the box is fetched and added in one step. Select several works for a grouped citation, give each one page numbers, a prefix ("see also") or a suffix, and choose the parenthetical or narrative form. Your PDF highlights can be inserted as quoted passages with their citation, and a reference that exists nowhere yet can be typed by hand.
Keyboard: ↑↓ move, space selects, Enter inserts, double-click cites one work immediately.
Editing a citation
Click any citation in the text. The popover shows what it cites with a link to the DOI, lets you change page numbers, prefix and suffix, remove one work or the whole citation, switch between (Smith 2020) and Smith (2020), jump to the entry in the reference list, or add and replace works through the picker. The reference list renumbers itself; nothing is stored in the text but the works.
Style and in-text format
References → Style opens the style chooser: every installed CSL style (Vancouver, APA, AMA, Nature and more) with a live preview. Numeric styles can print as [1], (1) or superscripts and collapse runs into ranges (1–3); author–date styles list references alphabetically and unnumbered. Changing the style re-renders every citation and the reference list at once, in the editor and in exports.
Related
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