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Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP): A Guide to McFarlin Library Resources

Citation Management Tools

A citation manager helps you keep track of articles and books as you find them, tag and annotate them, and easily create citations and bibliographies in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or other writing software. Using any citation manager will be more efficient for most scholars than not using one at all.

Most citation managers consist of three parts:

  1. a collection of your citations,
  2. browser plug-ins to more easily capture citation information from your sources,
  3. a plug-in or other way to easily get your citations into your work, usually in a variety of citation styles.

(Source: PennLibraries)

If you have questions about choosing a citation manager, contact a librarian. 

Zotero

Zotero is the citation management software promoted and taught by McFarlin Library.

Zotero is "citation management software".  Its purpose is to help you manage bibliographies and cite your sources in a research paper. 

Zotero is both 100% free and completely safe to use.  It's produced by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the Corporation for Digital Scholarship, with funding from the United States Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Using Zotero you may:

  • Collect Sources: Download citations for books, journal articles and other materials while you're doing research from:
    • Discovery
    • Library databases
    • Google Scholar
    • Websites (including Wikipedia)
    • ... and more
  • Organize Sources: Within Zotero you may manage and edit the citations you've downloaded for all the different research projects/papers you may be working on.
  • Cite Sources: As you write you may import into your paper all the sources you need to cite directly from Zotero.  They will be formatted in whatever style you're using (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.) both as inline citations and in the bibliography or list of works cited.  Zotero is compatible with Microsoft Word, Google Docs and Libre Office.
  • Create Bibliographies: Zotero easily creates stand-alone bibliographies in whatever style you choose for whatever references you want to include.
  • Share Research: By setting up a free Zotero account (on the Zotero website) you can easily share references with other TU students and collaborate in class research projects as well as sync your references among multiple computers.

Need help?

The librarians at McFarlin would be happy to assist you in installing or using Zotero. Just set up a personalized research assistance appointment.

Quick Tip video on how to Download Zotero

Quick Tip video on how to use Zotero.

Additional Citation Management Options

Note: Not all of these are free software.

EndNote

  • EndNote is a reference and full-text organizer that allows you to create bibliographies and format documents in a large number of output styles.

ProQuest RefWorks

  • RefWorks is a web-based bibliography and database manager that allows you to create your own personal database by importing references from text files, online databases and other sources. 

PowerNotes

  • PowerNotes is a web app that helps with online research -- gathering and keeping track of source materials, staying organized, and creating a research outline.

NoodleTools

  • NoodleTools is a web-based research platform that assists at multiple points in the research process, including: Compiling and organizing sources, writing and organizing notes, writing an outline, and correctly formatting citations.