Engineering Disasters and Liabilities: Citation Managers

Citation managers help you keep track of all of your sources (some will even save copies of articles). No more forgetting authors or losing all the information you've found when you lost a notebook.

They also make it easy to cite your sources for your papers. Many citation managers have word processor plug-ins that make it easy to cite in your papers. Using what you have cited in your paper, they can genereate your Works Cited/Reference List. And they will do it in the common citation style of your choice.  Which means you don't have to put all of your resources in APA style (though you should check them to make sure the style is current).

There are a variety of citation managers you can choose. 

Endnote and Refworks are two of the most popular citation managers.  Both are paid programs, however UTEP has subscriptions with each so that UTEP students, faculty and staff can have free accounts. 

• With Endnote, you can create a free basic web account that will be available for approximately a year after you graduate. 
• With Refworks, you can create a free account that does not expire.

To create your free accounts, go to their respective websites on campus or using a method of Remote Access to Databases.

There are also free citation managers that you can use.  Two of the most common are Mendeley and Zotero.

Which one should you use? 

Check out  this guide to the four from the University of Washington, or this in-depth comparison of many citation managers from Wikipedia.

Having problems with your chosen manager?  That's ok!  We can help!

We have guides for Endnote, Refworks, and Zotero.  We don't have a guide yet for Mendeley.  If you have any questions about using any of the citation managers, come by or contact the reference desk or drop me a line.