Referencing software

Using referencing software (also known as bibliographic software) is a good idea when writing a thesis or long document in which you cite the work of others. It helps by organising your references into an easily manageable database.

Used in conjunction with a word processing package (e.g. Microsoft Word), your referencing software can create a reference list formatted to your needs to be included in your document.

There are a number of referencing software package currently avaliable, of which some are free and some require a subscription. The most commonly used are discussed in this section.

http://www.endnote.comEndNote

EndNote is one of the most popular and commonly used software packages. The University of Sussex currently supports EndNote X3, which is available on all managed PC clusters around the campus.
It can be purchased for your personal machine under the Combined Higher Education Software Team (CHEST) Agreement at a discounted rate.
For more information on EndNote at the university, visit the ITS Helpdesk
ITS regularly run workshops on how to use EndNote. Log into Sussex Direct for more information.

EndNote Web

EndNote Web is a free, web-based version of EndNote.

It is not designed as replacement for EndNote but rather as a complementary tool and as a result does not offer as much functionality.

You can learn more about EndNote Web on the EndNote Website.

Reference libraries can be transferred between EndNote and EndNote Web. For more information on this and EndNote Web, please refer to the ITS Helpdesk.

Refworks

http://www.refworks.comRefWorks is a web-based commercial referencing software released in 2001.

There is an annual charge for using RefWorks.

The advantage of RefWorks is that the programme is available from anywhere as it is an Internet-based solution.

RefWorks offers in-text citation (also known as cite-as-you-write) while using a word processor such as Microsoft Word.

The RefWorks User Guide outlines how to use RefWorks effectively or alternatively you can check out the official RefWorks website here.

Reference manager

http://www.refman.com/Reference Manager is a commercial referencing software package from the Thomson Corporation.

It is widely regarded as the first commercial software of its kind and was first developed in 1982.

Reference Manager offers the unique ability to share a central database of references for access by multiple users, as well as in-text citation using a Word Processor.

For more information, visit the Reference Manager Official Website

Zotero

http://www.zotero.org/Zotero is a free, open source extension for the FireFox browser. It enables users to collect, manage, and cite research from all types of sources straight from FireFox.

It was originally aimed at replacing traditional reference management software, designed to meet the offline needs of a researcher. Cite-as-write is provided by Zotero.

Zotero can detect when a resource (book, article, etc.) is being viewed on many research websites (e.g. Google Scholar, Amazon) and with a mouse click finds and saves the full reference information to a local file.

A local copy of the full-text can optionally be saved, if it is available. Click here to visit the Zotero website.

Bibtex

http://www.bibtex.org/BibTeX is a free tool for formatting lists of references, typically used together with the LaTeX document preparation system.

Bibliographic items are formatted by BibTeX according to a style file by generating TeX or LaTeX formatting commands.

While BibTeX easily allows you to customise your bibliography to suit the requirements of a given publication, it is somewhat harder to grasp than other software.

For more information, visit the BibTeX Website

Sente

Sente helps you find, organize, review and cite the academic literature in your field and also helps you build and maintain your library of PDF files for these references.

Mendeley

Mendeley allows you to organise, share and discover research papers. Mendley hosts many features including indexing all PDF documents into your own personal digital bibliography and allowing you to collaberate with other researchers.

Papers

Papers is a bibliographic software tool for Mac. The program provides a wealth of features including a built-in Pages repositories and articles search, collecting articles in smart groups and automatic file management.

Citeulike

Citeulike is a free service for managing and discovering scholary references. The service allows you to store online references, provide automated article recommendations, find out who is reading what you are reading and store and search PDF documents.