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Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences: Writing + Citing

A guide to research resources on electrical engineering and computer sciences topics.

Citation Management Tools

Citation management software helps you to collect and organize papers, cite sources, and create bibliographies in a variety of citation styles.

Popular citation management tools in the sciences and engineering include:

  • Zotero is a free and easy-to-use tool for collecting, managing, and citing the sources you find during your research. It can be integrated with Google Docs, Overleaf, and Word for easily formatting citations while writing.
  • Mendeley is a freely available reference manager and academic social network that can be used to organize your research, create bibliographies, collaborate with others, and discover current developments. It can be integrated with Overleaf and Word for easily formatting citations while writing.
  • BibTeX is a tool and format for simply organizing citations in a .bib text file. It can be used in LaTeX to format citations and bibliographies in a variety of styles. Overleaf offers extensive guidance on how to use .bib files with bibtex and biblatex, a newer package that is actively being developed.
    • JabRef is a free tool for more effectively organizing and viewing your .bib libraries and formatting references and bibliographies.
  • EndNote is bibliographic management software that you install on your computer. It offers sophisticated, flexible tools for organizing references and creating bibliographies. EndNote works with Word to format citations and create bibliographies in a comprehensive variety of styles. Get the student price by purchasing online with proof of student status.
  • RefWorks is a web-based bibliographic management service licensed by the Library for use by current UCB faculty, staff, and students. It can be used to organize references, format citations, and create bibliographies in Google Docs and Word. To start using RefWorks, create an account using your @berkeley.edu email address.
  • Papers is low-cost software that allows you to search, retrieve, organize, and annotate article PDFs. It can be integrated with Google Docs and Word for easily formatting citations.
  • Paperpile is a low-cost web tool for collecting and organizing papers and easily formatting citations and bibliographies in Google Docs.

Collaborative LaTeX Writing

Collaborative writing tools for LaTeX have become popular in recent years. They make it easier to write and compile scientific and mathematical content using LaTeX whether writing by yourself or with a group. Try one of these tools that are free for basic use:

Overleaf
Online collaborative LaTeX editor. Free account includes unlimited private projects, up to 1 collaborator, and direct submission to selected publishers. As part of our institutional license, sign up with your Berkeley email address to access a professional account with unlimited collaborators, real-time track changes, full document history, Mendeley integration, Zotero integration, GitHub integration and sync, and the ability to save to Dropbox.

Authorea
Online collaborative editor for writing in Markdown, LaTeX, and Richtext. Free account includes 3 private articles, unlimited public articles, and up to 100MB data storage. Premium plans start at $10/month and include unlimited private articles, DOI minting, and up to 1GB data storage.

Style Guides

Publishers' style guides provide instructions for writing an article for one of its publications.  They typically specify the layout and length of the paper, rules for units, graphs and tables, copyright terms, and how to submit the paper. 

English as a Second Language

Are you looking to improve your technical and scientific communication skills in English? These resources may help: