Reference management: Compare and choose a tool

Reference management programs (also known as citation managers or bibliographic management software) provide many useful features that can help you with your research such as:

• storing and organising your references
• generating citations and bibliographies in the style you prefer; and,
• easily converting referencing styles to suit publication requirements.

Make a habit of storing all useful references to research literature as you come across them. This practice will save time later when you are writing.

As there are a number of different programs available it is important to choose a reference manager that adapts easily to your way of working and lets you establish an efficient workflow.

Cost - Is there a cost involved?

Desktop/Online- Will you want to access the tool both off and online?

Storage - How many references and attachments (such as PDFs) can you store?

Word Processor - Is the tool compatible with the word processor you use?

Reference Style - Does the tool format in your preferred style?

Advantages - Does the tool offer specific features that meet your needs?

Support - What level of support is available?

More questions:

• What are other in my field using? Do you need to share references with your research group?
• What kind of records can you import and organize (books, articles, patents, web pages)?
• Are records in your library viewable by others?
• Can you export records to other reference management tools?
• Does it have a mobile site or app?

Reference management tools help you store and organize references from different databases and create in-text-citations and bibliographies.

The University of Melbourne: 

• An introduction to Zotero

University of California (UCLA)

• Introduction to Zotero step by step

See comparison of reference management software in Wikipedia.