Merops contains over 170 customizable rules relating to references and citations.
Perhaps the most time-consuming stage of editing a document is ensuring references are accurately cited and displayed. Merops automates this task, giving you significant savings and improving quality.
The information below describes just a small percentage of the rules Merops can apply to references.
Cross-checking online
Automatic corrections
Merops can use data retrieved online to alert discrepancies or automatically correct, e.g.:
characters missing accents (Carre → Carré)
missing initials (Pitt, E → Pitt, ED)
spelling errors (Rodiguez → Rodriguez)
Automatic retrieval of missing details
Merops can use the data retrieved online to insert missing details, like a page range or volume number.
Hyperlinks
Merops can find your references online and insert hyperlinks to:
Merops can style the links to suit your house style, e.g.:
[doi:12.7626/0307-4859-141-11-201405580-00306]
[Pubmed: 19128993]
These links can enhance the quality and consistency of references, and can add value to the published product.
Example
1. Yang, LR, Jr, et al. (2000) Estrogen enhances uptake of amyloid ß-protein by microglia derived from the human cortex. J. Neurochem.75, 1447-54. [Crossref][PubMed]
Cross-checking within document
Merops automatically cross-checks citations with bibliographic lists, and can alert:
citations with no matching reference
uncited references
out of sequence numerical citations
Merops identifies and can correct discrepancies between a reference and its citation, including:
authors missing (2014 → Smith & Jones 2014)
too many authors (Smith & Jones 2014 → Smith 2014)
spelling errors (Paen 2014 → Péan 2014)
incorrect year (Smith 2013 → Smith 2014)
surname prefix missing (Smidt 2014 → van Smidt 2014)
abbreviation discrepancies (WHO 2014 → World Health Organization 2014)
‘in press’ matches current year (Smith, in press → Smith 2014)
Citations
Merops can identify and standardize reference citations to produce a consistent document that conforms to your preferred style.
Merops can now apply different preferences for citations in brackets and at first mention.
author-date system
Merops can standardize the sequence, punctuation, and formatting of author-date citations. Examples:
sort by date or by name, e.g. (Chopra, 2010; Malik, 1984) ↔ (Malik, 1984; Chopra, 2010)
use of 'et al.', e.g. Zhou, et al., 2014 ↔ Zhou, Xiè, and Shen, 2014
Corrections from PubMed/Crossref, e.g. Shmit, 2011 → Schmidt, 2011
Numerical system
Merops can standardize the formatting, position and punctuation of numerical citations:
Smith [23, 24, 25, 30]. ↔ Smith.23-25,30
Merops uses intelligent pattern recognition to ensure expressions like He2+, 10 m2, and χ2 are not misidentified as citations.
Reference lists
Merops uses massive dictionaries of surnames, organizations, publishers, journals, etc. in combination with intelligent pattern recognition to identify all components of a reference.
Merops can then standardize every aspect of these components, including formatting, punctuation and sequence.
Merops can also alert missing or unidentified reference parts.
Some advanced features include:
identify and remove paragraph breaks within entries
standardize use of et al., e.g. Zhou, et al., 2014 ↔ Zhou, Xiè, and Shen, 2014
expand/abbreviate journal titles, e.g. (Br Med J ↔ British Medical Journal)
elide or expand page ranges, e.g. (123–126 ↔ 123–6)
different style preferences for references in footnotes
apply or remove dash for repeated names, e.g. ——— (2012)… ↔ Fox (2012)…
alert publishers with the wrong city as their address
Merops can standardize all kinds of references, including journal, book, thesis, and online references.
Legal references
Merops applies national standard conventions for the presentation of legal citations.
[1] YANG, L.R. JNR. , Y. SHEN, R.B. LI, L. F. LUE, C. FINCH, & J. ROGERS. “Estrogen Enhances Uptake of Amyloid ß-Protein by Microglia Derived from the Human Cortex”. Journal of Neurochemistry 2000:75;1447-1454
After
1. Yang, LR, Jr, et al. (2000) Estrogen enhances uptake of amyloid ß-protein by microglia derived from the human cortex. J. Neurochem.75, 1447-54.
Here, amendments, based around a style template, have been made to every part of this reference automatically, potentially saving hours of work on lengthy texts.
