I sometimes get questions from people who want to print out a list of citations and abstracts from their RefWorks account. It's easy to print a list of citations in various styles, but more difficult to get the abstracts to appear in the list (because it's not something that would show up in a bibliography).
I recently discovered an output style that does this quite nicely. When creating the bibliography, scroll down into the "other" section and choose "APA, annotated with abstracts." This creates a bibliography with the citation and the abstract. Since people are usually doing this for their own use, the citation style (APA) shouldn't matter too much.
However, if people need the cites in a different style (AMA, Chicago, etc.), any output style can be modified (keep this in mind if patrons want a custom output style to include RefID, notes, etc.). So, people can choose the style they want, and follow these instructions to add an abstract to the list: http://www.refworks.com/Refworks/help/Creating_an_Annotated_Output_Style.pdf
Also, here's a PDF with general instructions for creating custom output styles: http://www.refworks.com/Refworks/help/Modifying_an_Output_Style_User_Guide.pdf
Creating a custom style is a bit cumbersome, so I recommend using the APA annotated style if it works for the patron's purposes.
Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!
Liz
Posted by biomedref at April 23, 2007 01:44 PM