Sing along with me…the tools, they are a-changin’! Information management is a skill every researcher should practice. To be proficient at research, it helps to use digital tools.

Digital tools are essential for digital scholars.  Citation managers, or reference managers, are one of the basic tools used by librarians, faculty and students.

There are many citation manager products. It doesn’t matter which one you use – but use one! Many citation managers have the same functions. Citation managers allow you to save citation information (from online catalogs, databases, journals and web sites) as you search; organize citations into folders to share citations with group members or faculty; and create bibliographies. Many citation managers insert references while you are writing.

Again, it doesn’t matter which citation manager you use – use one! It is easy to import and export citations from one to another if you need to change reference managers. See this page from the University of Minnesota comparing citation managers or, see what the APA recommends.

CUA offers citation managers through the Guides, Tutorials and Tools link. One of the citation managers is RefWorks. This product is now in a new iteration. You may have used Legacy RefWorks, and now will begin the transition to New RefWorks. [Note: both will work for this semester! See RefWorks at CUA.] For more on RefWorks see video tutorials from the RefWorks Community. RefWorks help is available from the ProQuest RefWorks LibGuide. Sign up for RefWorks webinars.

 

— Kimberly Hoffman