Docs/Ingest/Citing & duplicates

Citing sources & duplicates

A source is a paper, article, or document you've brought into Minerva to work from. Once it's in, you can cite it from any note, and bringing the same source in again won't clobber what you already have.

Citing a source in a note

To reference a source while writing, type [[cite:: and pick the source, or [[quote:: to point at a specific excerpt you've saved from it. This is the same linking you use to connect one note to another.

The Citations panel on the right gathers all of these for the note you're reading: one row per source, how many times you've cited it, and the exact passage for any quotes.

Bringing in the same source twice

If you try to bring in a source you already have, Minerva recognizes it and simply opens the copy you've got instead of making a second one. Your work is protected:

Your edits stay

If you've edited a source since bringing it in, doing it again leaves your changes untouched.

Details are added, not replaced

If the second attempt turns up details the first one missed, they're folded into what you already have rather than overwriting it.

You're told what happened

Minerva says plainly that you already have this source, and opens it for you.

Same source, two different ways in

If the same paper reaches you by two different routes — a web link today, a formal reference next month — Minerva may not realize they're the same and will keep both. When you notice, right-click one in the Sources panel, choose Merge into…, pick the other, and confirm. Its excerpts and citations move over and the extra copy goes away.