Skip to Main Content

General Library Guide for PWR1 Coursework: Managing citations

What is a citation manager?

When you start finding relevant research articles, you'll want an easy way to store and access them. That way you can refer back to them and cite them in your own publications. Citation managers help you to save, organize, and share your citations (references). Citation managers allows you to:

  • Save documents, like PDFs, and citations.
  • Organize documents and citations using tags and folders.
  • Share folders with classmates and colleagues.
  • Generate lists of references and inline citations automatically.

 

How to pick a citation manager

Ask around and see what your classmates, advisor, and colleagues use. If it's varied or they don't know, we recommend Zotero.

Developed by the Corporation for Digital Scholarship, a nonprofit organizationZotero follows a freemium model. Zotero offers 300 MG of storage space for free and additional storage space for a subscription fee. Zotero allows you to:

  • use their web app and desktop app
  • store citations and documents
  • save references directly from the web with browser plug-ins
  • cite as you write with Google Docs plug-in
  • tag documents
  • share private folders and public folders

Other options

 

Developed by ProQuest, RefWorks is a web-based citation manager that requires an institutional license. Stanford Libraries maintains an institutional license. Use your Stanford email to create an account. RefWorks allows you to:

  • use their web app
    undefined
  • store citations and documents
  • save references directly from the web with browser plug-ins
  • cite as you write with Google Docs plug-in
  • tag and annotate documents
  • share private folders and public folders
  • use unlimited storage due to our site license

 

 

Developed by Elsevier, Mendeley also follows a freemium model. Mendeley offers 2GB of storage space for free and additional storage space for a subscription fee. Stanford Libraries maintains an institutional license, which provides students, staff, and faculty with additional storage space and enhanced functionality regarding shared folders. Mendeley allows you to:

  • use their web app and desktop appMendeley logo
  • store citations and documents
  • save references directly from the web with browser plug-ins
  • tag documents and annotate documents
  • share private and public folders 

 

 

Developed by Clarivate Analytics, a for-profit company, EndNote offers a free web app (EndNote basic) and a desktop app (EndNote 21) that requires a one-time purchase. EndNote allows you to:

  • use their web app and desktop app (desktop app requires EndNote 21)
  • store citations and documents (document storage requires EndNote 21)
  • save references directly from the web with browser plug-ins
  • share private folders
  • easily save references from Web of ScienceEndNote logo