Library Guides: Plant and Microbial Biology: Write + Cite

Citing Your Sources

Citing Sources
Why and how to cite sources, plus information on commonly used citation styles.

Reference managers (also called citation managers or bibliographic management software) offer a way to save, organize and manage references. They work with word processing software to format in-text citations and bibliographies for papers and theses, allow you to share references, and enable you to attach or link PDFs to a citation record.

Zotero (recommended)

Zotero guide; learn how to use Zotero with this self-paced Zotero tutorial
Free (up to 300 MB web storage, or store pdfs in Box and sync with ZotFile)
Sync Zotero to access your library from any computer with internet access
Format bibliographies in Word, OpenOffice, and Google Docs; integrates with Overleaf
Capture citation data from PDFs and web pages
Search and annotate pdfs
Share and collaboratively edit lists of references
Install plugins to provide enhancements, new features, and integrations with other programs.

Mendeley

Mendeley guide
Free software/web hybrid for PC, Mac, Linux
Format bibliographies in Word, export to BibTeX, or use Overleaf for LaTeX integration
Capture citation data from some PDFs
Search and annotate PDFs
Share and collaboratively edit lists of references using Private Groups

EndNote

EndNote guide
Full-featured software discounted to UC Berkeley users; EndNote Online free to UCB
Desktop-based software (plus EndNote Web)
Format bibliographies in Word or Open Office
Capture citation data from some PDFs
Annotate PDFs
Find the full text of articles from within EndNote
Share lists of references with other EndNote users

Doing a Systematic Review?

Before you embark on a systematic review, please understand that this could easily be a one year or more project.

UC Berkeley licenses Covidence, a tool to help you with your systematic reviews.
In Covidence, you can import citations, screen titles and abstracts, upload references, screen full text, create forms for critical appraisal, perform risk of bias tables, complete data extraction, and export a PRISMA flowchart summarizing your review process. As an institutional member, our users have priority access to Covidence support.
To access Covidence using the UC Berkeley institutional account, start at this page and follow the instructions.

Writing

Ten Simple (Empirical) Rules for Writing Science
Article from PLOS
Making Scientific Writing Painless
iBiology video featuring Dr. Ian Baldwin sharing tips and strategies for writing science.
How to Write a Good Scientific Paper
Book (ebook and print) with practical advice about writing and publishing a paper in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Writing For Conservation
Includes sections on making effective graphics and maps.
UCB Graduate Writing Center
Workshops, writing groups, and individual consultations.

Overleaf This link opens in a new window
Online collaborative LaTeX editor for writing scientific and technical papers. Useful for formatting equations, formulas, algorithms, tables, and figures within text. Sign up with your UC Berkeley email address to access premium features.
Premium features include unlimited collaborators, real-time track changes, full document history, Mendeley integration and sync, GitHub integration and sync, and the ability to save to Dropbox.

The Library has many books on scientific writing, the research process, and communicating science. Please ask if you would like help finding them!

Maximize and Measure Impact of Your Published Work. Sign up for ORCID!

Guide to Measuring Research Impact
Includes information on journal impact, author impact, author IDs and profiles (including ORCID), altmetrics, how to broaden your impact, and more.
Research Impact
More on Research Impact from the Library's Office of Scholarly Communications.

Open Access Publishing Support

Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII)
The Library will subsidize article fees for publication in fully open access journals. Follow the link to see eligibility rules and restrictions.
Open Access Publishing for UC Berkeley researchers
Information on policies and support for Open Access publishing at UCB.

Copyright and Your Rights as an Author

Copyright and Publishing Your Dissertation
From the Library's Scholarly Communications Office. Covers topics like using copyrighted materials in your dissertation, making publishing decisions, and your rights as an author.

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