Options for Citation Management

A citation manager is a tool that helps you to store, organize, and output your citations in the format you prefer. There are many Citation Management tools on the market today. Here is a list and summary of just a few. We will showcase several of the most popular cross-platform products and list a couple of very good MAC products. See also the full comparison chart of most products from Wikipedia.


RefWorks ($$) is one of the easiest citation management tools to use. RefWorks is web-based for easy access from anywhere as long as you have an Internet connection. Using RefWorks, you can easily add citations to create your RefWorks library and generate bibliographies from your RefWorks library.


BibMe is a free (MLA/APA/Chicago) online bibliography generator. Choose the source, fill out the form, and it will create a formatted citation.


 is also an easy-to-use open source (free) tool that is accessible via the web—it actually lives right in your browser! Using Zotero, it is especially easy to capture and save citations found on webpages, and to add notes and other information to saved citations for efficient and creative organization. "Zotero is an easy-to-use yet powerful research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources (citations, full texts, web pages, images, and other objects), and lets you share the results of your research in a variety of ways. An extension to the popular open-source web browser Firefox, Zotero includes the best parts of older reference manager software (like EndNote) - the ability to store author, title, and publication fields and to export that information as formatted references - and the best parts of modern software and web applications (like iTunes and del.icio.us), such as the ability to interact, tag, and search in advanced ways." --Zotero.org

Here's some of what Zotero can do for you and your research:

  • Automatic capture of citation information from web pages
  • Storage of PDFs, files, images, links, and whole web pages
  • Flexible note-taking with auto-save
  • Fast, as-you-type search through your materials

Citation Machine is another free online tool that generates MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian references.


 ($$$) is a bibliographic management software program that allows you to collect and organize citations and insert them into a word processing program in formatted bibliographic styles. It is a very sophisticated citation manager that offers the largest number of citation formats and options. The files reside on the computer which does not make it dependent on an internet connection; it does offer a basic but less functional Web-based option; it is considered more difficult to learn and use.

You may purchase the software at a discounted student price from Clavirate Analytics.

Getting Started with EndNote

Please download EndNote's Getting Started Guide (Windows) (Mac) (Also available on your EndNote CD under "extras"). This guide will provide instructions on how to set your preferences for the program and how to use EndNote with your word processor.

Training Options

Both interactive online tutorials in basics and live Webinar classes are offeerd. The online tutorials are always available. To participate in a Webinar class you must submit a request form available on EndNote's training site.

EndNote Citation Style for Global University

Download the Global University citation output style to your EndNote software program.


Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research. Automatically generate bibliographies, collaborate easily with other researchers online, easily import papers from other research software, find relevant papers based on what you’re reading, access your papers from anywhere online, read papers on the go, with their new iPhone app, etc..