1. How to Check ParentheticalCitations Efficiently
Daniel J. King
These instructions are for scholars who write papers using
parenthetical citations. As a professional copyeditor, I learned
a procedure that allows one to check parentheticals quickly. For
my example here, I am using the capstone paper I wrote for my
bachelor’s degree, years before I became a copyeditor.

2. In my capstone, my parentheticals consisted of the author’s last
name followed by a comma and the page number(s). This procedure
will work for any kind of citation wrapped in parentheses,
however. (Note that I work with invisible characters displayed,
so that spaces and paragraph returns can be seen.)
Here is my reference list. I must check every parenthetical to
make sure the source is included in the reference list, the
author’s name is spelled correctly, and the format is
consistent.

3. 1. Make a copy of your document. This procedure will destroy
your paper, so only perform it after you have made a copy.
2. Open the Find and Replace window.

4. 3. Check the box that says Use wildcards. Wildcards allow you
to do complex searches. (Look into Word’s Help menu for
more information on finding and replacing text using
wildcards.) In the Find what field, enter “((*))”. This
expression will find everything inside parentheses. Move
the cursor to the Replace with field and then select the
Highlight option from the Format menu. (Depending on your
citation style, you may need to move the last names of
authors into some of the parentheticals before running this
search.)

5. 4. If you press Find Next, it should select a parenthetical.
5. Press Replace All to highlight everything in parentheses.

6. 6. Clear the Find what field. Uncheck the Use wildcards box.
With the cursor in the Replace with field, press the No
Formatting button to clear the Highlight formatting.
7. With the cursor in the Find what field, press the Highlight
option in the Format menu twice, so that it searches for
Not Highlight. Make sure there is nothing in the Replace
with field.

7. 8. Press Replace All to delete everything that is not
highlighted.

8. 9. Search for Highlight and replace with Not Highlight to
remove all the highlighting.

9. 10. Clear the formatting, and then search for “)(” and
replace with “^p”. This will find back-to-back parentheses
and replace them with paragraph returns.

10. 11. Press Replace All to put each parenthetical on its own
line.

11. 12. Delete the leftover parentheses at the beginning and
end of the list. Then select all the text and press the
Sort button.

12. 13. Press OK to sort the lines alphabetically.

13. 14. This is a good time to look for inconsistencies in the
format of your parentheticals.

14. 15. Delete any lines that are not citations.

15. 16. Now you can open your original file and compare your
reference list to the alphabetical list of parenthetical
citations you just generated. Gratz! There aren’t many
sources in my example here, but I’ve used this procedure
when copyediting books with hundreds of references, and it
saves a great deal of time. With the lists side by side
like this, it is easy to see if there are cited sources
that are missing from the reference list or sources in the
reference list that are not cited in the paper.