1. Make sure your library is open. 
2. Choose References from the main toolbar. 
3. Choose New Reference

You will get a pop-up box in which to enter the information from your citation. Type, or copy and paste, as much of the information as you have. You don't need to use all fields, but you should enter the basic citation information at minimum.

• Reference Type - what kind of item is this? Select journal article, book, etc as appropriate. For citing a web page, use "Electronic Source" and be sure to include the URL and date accessed.
• Author - enter the author's name in any order (i.e. "John B. Doe" or "Doe, John B."), but if you enter last name first, there must be a comma after the last name. For a name without a comma, EndNote takes the last word as the last name and formats it accordingly. So if it is a corporate author (an organization such as a business, government agency, or institution, considered to be the author of a work), add a comma at the end of the corporate name (e.g. "John B. Doe Corporation,"). If there are multiple authors, hit return after each one. 
• Year - year of publication
• Title - do not use bold or italics or quotation marks; for journal article references, title refers to the article title
• Keywords - enter words here that describe what an item is about; these words can be used to retrieve this citation later. 
• Other - as appropriate. 

Close the reference when completed; it will be saved automatically. 

The Terms list feature facilitates data entry and saves time by storing Author, Journal Title, and Keyword terms. When you add a new reference to an EndNote library, whether manually or by importing, the author(s), journal title, and keywords are automatically added to your Terms list. You can also add new or edit existing terms, or even add a new list (e.g. a list for 'publisher'). Once a term is added, you can copy it to a new reference and save yourself a lot of typing. This is also helpful if you want to create your own list of searchable keywords, or if you need to use certain journal abbreviations in your bibliography. 

Say, for example, you add a reference by author John Doe to your library. If authors' names starting with "D" have already been added, the first in the alphabetical list of Ds will automatically appear in the Author field when you enter "D" in that field. If you have already entered a record for John Doe, use the up and down arrow keys to move through the list of authors' names to find his name, then hit the Tab key to move to the next field. John Doe will be entered as the author. If John Doe is not yet on the list, you'll have to type his full name. 

To create a new list:

• Under Tools in the main menu, select Define Terms List
• Click to Create List
• Give the list a name (e.g. "Publisher")
• If you already have a library of citations, you will want to add the publishers already in the library to your new terms list. Click Update List.
• From the Add Field drop-down menu, select Publisher (or whichever field is appropriate for your list).
• Click OK, and you have a terms list of all the publishers in your current citations. As you add new citations, new publisher names will be added to the terms list automatically.

To create a new term:

• Under Tools in the main menu, select Open Terms List, then select the terms list you want to add a new term to.
• Click to add a New Term
• Enter the new term, click OK, and it is in your terms list and available when you manually enter a new record, or edit an old record.

To edit an existing term:

• Under Tools in the main menu, select Open Terms List, then select the terms list you want to add a new term to.
• Click the term you want to edit, and then click to Edit Term, then click OK to save your edits.
• Note: editing a term in the Terms List will not change any of the records in your EndNote library. To edit the terms in a record in EndNote, you must edit the record individually.