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Sociology: Citations

Resources for research in sociology

Reference managers

Reference managers (also called citation managers or bibliographic management software) offer a way to save, organize and manage references. Many 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.

 For drop-in classes in reference managers like EndNote, Refworks, Mendeley, Zotero, etc, see Library Classes and Tours.

 

RefWorks

  • Free to UC Berkeley users
  • Web-based: use at any computer with internet access
  • Format bibliographies in Word
  • Import citations from RSS feeds
  • Use UC-eLinks to find the full text of articles from within RefWorks
  • Share lists of references or create a group account for co-editing
  • From ProQuest

Zotero

  • Free (up to 300 MB web storage) browser extension
  • Sync Zotero to access your library from any computer with internet access
  • Format bibliographies in Word and OpenOffice
  • Capture citation data from PDFs and web pages
  • Share and collaboratively edit lists of references
  • Open source software from the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
Mendeley
  • Free (up to 1 GB web storage) software/web hybrid for PC, Mac, Linux
  • Format bibliographies in Word or Open Office
  • Sync PDFs to your web account for online access
  • Capture citation data from some PDFs
  • Search and annotate PDFs
  • Share and collaboratively edit lists of references
  • From Elsevier
EndNote
  • Discounted to UC Berkeley users
  • Desktop-based software (plus EndNote Web)
  • Format bibliographies in Word or Open Office
  • Capture citation data from some PDFs
  • Annotate PDFs
  • Use UC-eLinks to find the full text of articles from within EndNote
  • Share lists of references with other EndNote users
  • See our EndNote Support page for tutorials and additional information
  • From Thomson Reuters

Getting Started With Zotero

Citation management tools help you manage your research, collect and cite sources, and create bibliographies in a variety of citation styles.  Zotero is free software that you can install on your computer -- it helps organize your research, and then connects to Word to makes it much easier to create in-text citations and bibliographies. 

The library has created this handy guide to using Zotero -- including unlimited storage while a UCB student, staff or faculty --  by syncing your files to Box!  The great thing about Zotero (and why we focus on it here at the library) is that it's free and open to all, so whatever you end up doing at the end of your time at Berkeley, you can take your account and all its information and files with you, at no charge.

Also, it's always good to double check the formatting after creating a bibliography-- none of the software is always perfect!

Zotero (Before you get started)

Go to http://www.zotero.org

  1. Register/Login
  2. Download Zotero 5.0 (for Windows, macOS, Linux)
  3. Install Browser Connector (for any browser - Firefox, IE, Chrome, etc.)
  4. Sync your account (Preferences > Sync with username/password - see Step 1)

Pro-tip: Use Zotero Standalone which means you have to download the software to your computer.

 

Zotero (Managing your bibliography)

  1. Doing your research using Zotero
    • Set preferences
      • automatically attach PDFs (Preferences > General)
      • automatically retrieve metadata for PDFs (Preferences > General)
      • etc.
    • Create folders (called "Collections")
    • Add items from a database
    • Make notes
    • Upload PDFs to your Zotero account
  2. Write your research paper (using Word)
    • Add footnotes, endnotes or in-text citations
    • Create a bibliography

Pro-tip: If you're writing in a Google doc, drag and drop citation from Zotero into the document.