Citation Management Software:

RefWorks

Josh WilsonPhysical and Mathematical Sciences Reference Librarian

North Carolina State University Libraries

Online guide: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/guides/refworks

Keeping track of all of your research

►How do you save all your research work?

►Bookmarking webpages is unstable, no easy way to organize

►Large Word or Excel files►Notecards are great until one day you

leave them on the bus…►“Citation management software”

Saves all references from most databases in ONE place

How Citation Managers WorkWeb of Science

CAB abstracts

Saved citations

Other databases and

sources

Saved citations

Books from catalog

Saved citations

ONE PLACE- Access from anywhere

- Links back to articles, saved PDFs

- Organize citations into multiple folders - Create bibliographies

Export:

Different products►RefWorks

Free for NCSU students, internet-based, available through Libraries’ site

Library support available!►Zotero

Free, browser-based, works with Firefox Library support available!

►EndNote Costs $100+, standalone software

installed on your computer►No choice is permanent! Easy to

export between them if your needs change

Different products

►We’ll talk about RefWorks today Easy to use and demonstrate Stable Free Recommended for anyone

►If you think another product suits your work better later on, it’s easy to change

RefWorks account

►Let’s take a few minutes now to create a RefWorks account…

►Not related to unity ID/password It can be, but probably shouldn’t I’m not going to stop you

It’s easy to organize all references into folders

How do you save things in RefWorks?

In general:

1. Export citations to a file.

2. Go into RefWorks.

3. Import.

Exporting and importing

►Usually straightforward

►Just follow a few steps, no specialized computing skills required

►Let’s see how to do it in a couple of different databases…

Then from within RefWorks, import the file

Just specify the database you pulled the references from

RefWorks exercise

►Do the first exercise on your handout to learn how to import citations manually We’ll learn how to do it this way first, then

see that some databases support direct importing

►Follow the instructions to import these citations into your RefWorks account

►Ask me if you get stuck!

Getting citations into RefWorks

►Exporting/importing requires slightly different steps depending on the database But conceptually, always the same Look for specific instructions in the

RefWorks guide

►Some databases make it even easier…

Even easier:

Some databases support direct exporting into

RefWorks

RefWorks exercise 2

►Follow the exercise instructions to import more citations from other databases and the library catalog This time we’ll use direct importing Much easier, but not always supported

►Ask if you need assistance!

Manual creation of references

►Not recommended, but sometimes necessary…

►Note you can also edit existing references This is more common Mostly it’s just good to know what kind of

information is actually saved in here You may need to edit citations manually –

importing isn’t always perfect

Manual EDITING of references

►Same as creation: Not recommended, but sometimes

necessary…►Note you can also edit existing

references This is more common Mostly it’s just good to know what kind of

information is actually saved in here You may need to edit citations manually –

importing isn’t always perfect

Let’s revisit organizing folders…

How do you move citations around?

Extra stuff you can do

► Find saved papers with FindText link

►Share an account Work with a group on a research project

►Everyone can save to the same account, create a shared literature database

►Create a bibliography►RefGrab-It►Write-N-Cite

RefWorks exercise 3

►Follow the exercise instructions to make a bibliography

RefGrab-It

►Use it to grab citations off database pages

►Also use it to save websites

Write-N-Cite

►An extension for MS Word that integrates your RefWorks citations

►Add references to text as you write

►See Write-N-Cite in action: http://screencast.com/t/mem8RR4w

You CAN take it with you

►Accounts are through the library, but you can export your work Take it with you to other institutions or

other software and import

Different products

►Another word on Zotero Free, evolving product Highly recommended for Firefox users Often even easier to use that RefWorks

►EndNote? Many loyal users, but not usually

recommended for beginners

Getting citations into Zotero

►All citation managers work mostly the same: Export from database, catalog, webpage,

etc. Import into citation manager

►Most modern citation managers work with nearly all databases

►Zotero has a drag & drop function that makes this even easier for most databases

Saving a website

Save several citations

Save an individual citation

Saving a book

Organize using folders and subfolders

Drag and drop imported citations – easy!

Zotero also saves snapshots and/or

attachments, which you can annotate

You can also add notes and tags to citations to better organize them.

Creating a bibliography

►Eventually you’ll write something and need to cite all the references you’ve collected

►Zotero automatically creates bibliographies for you Hundreds of styles available, although

note that CBE/CSE is not one of them (yet)

Drag and drop from Zotero/Firefox into Word…

Or right-click selected citations to create a bibliography.

Getting help later

►NCSU Libraries’ guides:

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/guides/refworks/http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/guides/zotero

►Ask-A-Librarian

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/libref