Citation Managers are tools to help you keep track of your citations as you research and to create/format your citations and bibliography. For example, Zotero allows you to keep citations, full text articles, and other research resources organized in one place. You can also use these tools to format your bibliographies and the notes/citations in your papers according to the appropriate style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).
Watch this video to learn more about Zotero
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RefWorks |
Zotero |
Mendeley |
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Strengths? |
Allows users to share citations Good for organizing citations for papers Web-based Since Claremont Colleges Library has a site license, there's no cost
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Simple download of citation records Good for managing a variety of formats, including web pages Offers most functionality in a free, open-source product |
Great for managing PDFs Has a social aspect. Can see what other users are reading and citing. Find other members with common research interests. Does an excellent job of pulling citation metadata from PDFs Can share citations and documents with others |
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Cost? |
Free via Claremont Colleges Library license. See the RefWorks guide for information and how to sign up for your individual account. |
Free with 300 MB of back-up storage. Storage upgrades available for a monthly fee. Open source. See the Zotero research guide for more information.
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Free with 2GB personal & 100 MB shared. Storage upgrades available for a monthly fee.
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Learning curve? |
Fairly quick to learn; many online user guides and demos
Claremont Colleges Library does offer Refworks training classes |
Quick to learn; simple design, many online user guides and demos
Claremont Colleges Library does offer Zotero training classes |
Quick to learn; Pretty simple interface
Claremont Colleges Library does offer Mendeley training classes |
This chart adapted with permission from the MIT Overview of Citation Software at MIT research guide.
