As you dive deeper into your field of study, you will amass a large collection of research resources and references. It is a good idea at the beginning of your research process to think about how you want to capture and organize your references. You may also want to chat with your supervisor and colleagues to see which tools they use and recommend.
Reference (or citation) management software can save you time by helping you cite while you write, organize your sources, and create reference lists/bibliographies in a click or two. Citation software allows you to import references/citations from online databases and websites, organize them into folders, insert them into the body of your research paper in a variety of citation style formats (e.g. APA and MLA), and generate formatted reference lists.
The University Library provides introductory support for some of these more popular citation managers:
Compare the various features of these citation managers on this chart. Also, experiment with Zotero, EndNote, and Mendeley (or watch one of our workshop recordings) and decide which features are most important for your research. You may also want to talk to others in your department to see what they use.
If you are new to this type of software, watch the following short video:
Source: Reference Management Tools from FX Plus Library on Vimeo
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