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Education: Citation Management Tools

Research portal helpful to students in the education field.

Citation managers are tools to help you store, organize and output citations in your format of choice.

About Citation Managers

Some of our subscription databases provide assistance in the creation of citations in specific formats; however, you should always double-check the accuracy of the citations they provide.

 

MSUB provides support for the following Citation Styles. Please checkout the individual guides for specific details:

 

Zotero

Zotero (pronounced "zoh-TAIR-oh") is a free addon for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. This citation manager is accessible via the web and is easy to use for capturing and saving citations from website sources. You can also add notations and other information to these saved citations to help with your organization. Features include:

  • Automatic capture of citation information
  • Storage of PDFs, files, images, links, and entire web pages
  • Citation export in a specific format
  • Compatible with MS Word and OpenOffice

Get help—


 Many of the Library's databases permit you to export citations to Zotero and other citation managers.

RefWorks

RefWorks is a reference management service that supports the needs of students, staff, faculty and anyone doing academic research. With a streamlined user experience, full-text management and collaboration features, RefWorks gives users a tool that enables a more efficient and reliable process for producing research papers.

  • You can create citations in RefWorks to copy to your document, or more conveniently, you can add them while working in your document using a RefWorks add-on. In addition, the add-ons enable you to manage the citations in the: delete, add, restyle, and so forth.
  • Save to RefWorks is a browser bookmarklet that enables you to add references to your RefWorks account directly from your browser.

For more information on how to install and use RefWorks, please review this helpful guide.


RefWorks is incorporated into PowerSearch, and can be used with individual items. Once you've installed and set up your RefWorks account, you can simply click on the RefWorks option as shown in the item entry below.

Note: RefWorks is a subscription product available through MSUB. Once you leave MSUB, you will no longer have access to this account.

EndNote

EndNote is reference management software with features to—

  • Keep all your references and reference-related materials in a searchable personal library.
  • Synchronize your references between up to three of your personal computers, an online library, and your iPad or iPhone through EndNote Sync. (You must be the owner and user of all three computers.)
  • Set up a library sharing team and effortlessly collaborate with up to 400 co-authors and colleagues.
  • Cite your references in word processing documents to create formatted citations and bibliographies or independent reference lists.
  • Create a personal database of references relevant to you, along with associated files.
  • Insert references into a Word document and format them automatically in a citation style of your choice.
  • De-duplicate references retrieved from multiple sources.
  • Share references with others.

For set-up instructions, checkout these videos:


This helpful guide from UCL provides and in-depth overview of how to maximize EndNote for your academic research. 

Databases

Library databases like Academic Search Complete (ASC) usually provide a citation generator. However, this is just a starting point for creating your citations. Please carefully review the citation information and make corrections according to your instructor's preferences and the style you are using.

 

For example, to view the citation during a search in ASC, select the "Cite" button—

Copy the citation format you desire (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.) and paste into your reference list. Please remember to check for accuracy. Remember, these are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate, just a starting point for you.