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Citing & Referencing

Citation Management

Citation management software allows you to store and organize your resources and citation information easily. You will be able to create databases of citations or references to books, journal articles, and web sites used in your research.  The software allows you to easily insert your citations within a research paper as in-text references, footnotes, or endnotes, and the creation of a formatted bibliography using a citation style of choice (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

For help with citation management software, contact libhelp@brocku.ca.

What Citation Management Software is Available?

Several free and open-source Citation Management Tools are available. Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote are three popular tools. Zotero is popular for use in the Social Sciences and Humanities, while Mendeley is popular for use in the Sciences.

While each citation management tool provides some unique features, all of the following tools can help you: 

  • Access and manage your sources online, all in one place
  • Import references from library databases and websites (some tools also import references from PDFs!)
  • Automatically generate bibliographies and in-text citations within Microsoft Word (some tools also work with OpenOffice)

Comparison charts for Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote:

Zotero

EndNote

Mendeley

Citation Management Tools: An Introduction