Why Use a Citation Manager?

Most of us have a collection of documents on our desktop, both physical and virtual. Citation Managers do the work of organizing those documents for you. 

Create a collection of references

• Once citations are captured, they can be stored, organized and manipulated in personal mini-libraries organized by Folders, Groups, and Tagging. This organizational system can be customized by each group using the common vocabulary of a discipline or lab.

Insert citations into word processing documents

• Using a "cite-while-you-write" feature, Citation Managers allow citations, footnotes or endnotes to be inserted into their proper place as you write a paper or manuscript. As they are inserted, a bibliography is automatically generated and updated as you change the citations. 

The Zotero tab in MS Word has an Add Citation button that automatically inserts a citation.

Format a Works Cited Page

• Works Cited pages can be automatically generated in either alphabetical or chronological citation order, depending on the citation style. 

• Create stand-alone Works Cited pages that can be saved in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Collaborate with a Group

• Using a Citation Manager in a lab or team setting allows easy sharing of relevant documents for the team, including protocols or onboarding documents.

Provide a search interface

• Search databases directly from the Citation Manager.
• Citations are selected and downloaded (exported) directly to your Citation Manager.

Annotate PDFs

• Some Citation Managers (ie: Mendeley and EndNote) allow the reading of and annotation of PDFs within the software. This allows easy highlighting of key passages, and searchable notes can be added for future retrieval.