Using the Publication Assistant

The Publication Assistant is a floating window that shows you a compact view of the contents of your Citavi project while you write your paper. By double-clicking you can directly insert a placeholder for a citation, a complete quotation and its placeholder, or a thought into an open Writer document.

Anatomy of a Placeholder

A placeholder consists of a short text that identifies the reference, enclosed in braces { }. The placeholder text can contain several kinds of identifying information that can be used alone or in combination: author, year, and sequence number. For example, a placeholder for the reference "Norman, Donald A: The Design of Everyday Things. New York 2002" could be {Norman 2002 #142}

The sequence number is the unique identifier for each individual reference in a project, and is shown in the status bar at the bottom of the Citavi window. When you use the sequence number in a placeholder, the other identifying information is ignored because the sequence number positively identifies a reference. This allows Citavi to distinguish between two publications by the same author written in the same year. For example, if you have the placeholders {Miller 2010 #50} and {Miller 2010 #72}, Citavi can format the references as (Miller 2010a) and (Miller 2010b).

Page numbers for a quotation are inserted with a colon after the sequence number: {Luhmann 1997 #138:97-98}

Tabs in the Publication Assistant

To open the Publication Assistant, on the Citation menu, click Publication Assistant. The Publication Assistant has two tabs: References and Knowledge items.