Graduate Student Resources: Citation Managers

Start with Organized References from the Beginning! 

Especially for long-term projects with a large reference list like a thesis, it's really important to get organized right away. Citation management programs like RefWorks and Zotero are powerful tools that help you keep track of and organize your research sources, articles, websites, books, and anything else you are citing. Not only will you be able to easily save, organize and quickly access research, once you start writing citation management software can automatically format your reference page and in-text citations with a click of the button.

RefWorks is a web-based, easy to use tool for keeping track of your sources and creating citations with a few clicks of a button! 

With RefWorks you can:

• Create in-text citations with the click of a button
• Automatically import your references into a formatted bibliography 
• Export citations from library databases, the web, and other sources to organize your research
• Save so much time! 

Zotero is a free, easy to use bibliographic manager that collects, organizes, and helps you cite your research.  It has desktop, online, and browser-integrated versions.  It comes with the most heavily used citation styles already available, but you can download many more.

You can attach PDFs, take website snapshots, organize your sources into folders, and create bibliographies.  It integrates with Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice, and Open Office.

Zotero will also index the full text of your documents, allowing you to find exactly what you need.