Citation Management

Citation tools can help you

• Format citations
• Create bibliographies
• Import citations from databases and websites
• Make notes when you read articles
• Store and organize PDFs, screenshots, and other files

What should I use?

Citation Helpers

• Quick formatting and lookup
• Best for only a few citations (<20)

Citation Managers

• Best for more extensive citation management
• 20+ references
• Manage PDFs
• Integrate into MS Word
• Software like Endnote, Zotero, Mendeley

These tools can be helpful for creating one or two citations or short lists of references for something like a limited annotated bibliography, but they are not robust enough for detailed works like theses and dissertations.

Because these tools are constantly changing and many are full of advertisements, you can search for these yourself using the phrase: "free citation generators". Many are quite adequate for simple citation needs, but we caution you to not rely 100% of these tools and learn the basics of the style manual you are using to check for accuracy.

Microsoft Word

Since Microsoft Word 2007, a new Citations and Bibliograpy functionality is available. It can store citations with the document and format in APA, MLA, Turabian, and several other citation styles. For Windows versions of Word, see Microsoft's instructions for your version of Word:

For Word for Mac:

These are the most commonly used citation managers.  They are useful if you are working on multiple projects at once that use the same citations, if you have a large number of citations you want to retain and use, or if you are working on a theses, dissertation, or a work for publication. 

EndNote Desktop

EndNote Basic

Mendeley

Zotero