Citation Management Basics

For large research projects where you need to organize, manage, share, and/or format bibliographic information for numerous resources, consider using a Citation Manager. A citation manager is a software tool that allows you to collect citation information directly from many databases and websites, organize your citations into collections, and format in-text citations and bibliographic entries directly within your documets.

Citation managers are best suited to large research projects. If you only have a few citations that you need to format for your bibliography, consider using a Citation Generator instead.

***Remember, always double-check citations generated by citation management software against the rules of the citation style you are using! Using citation management software is not a substitute for knowing how to cite a source on your own, nor is it an excuse for incorrect or incomplete citations!***

There are many different citation management software packages and services available for purchase, including Thomson Reuters' EndNote software package and the online subscription services EasyBib and Refworks.

The library provides support for the free citation management software, Zotero. To learn more and see a brief introductory video about Zoter, see the library's Zotero toolkit post.