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Cite Your Sources and Manage Your Documents: Reference Management

Reference Managers

Reference managers such as: Endnote, Refworks, Zotero, & Mendeley allow you to download, collect, & share references, PDFs, data, and documents. Some work with word processing to format citations and footnotes in papers and create bibliographies in a variety of styles. This list contains commonly used tools and apps in the sciences.

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.
  • 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.

Other Tools

Explore other available tools and apps for reference management.

Software for Science Reference Management: a web-list of many bibliographic management programs for the PC or Mac, some are free.

Reference Management Apps at alternativeTo.

Comparison Charts

Not sure which ones will work best for you? Wikipedia offers an extensive Comparison of Reference Management Software.