What is a citation manager?
A program that keeps everything you read and one place with your notes, summaries, and produces citations for you.
Why should I care?
Because your citation manager will become your best friend.
Where do I start?
Here! That's what this post is for.
Let's get started, and do some invWestigationWhat is a citation manager for, and which one should I choose? Here are some steps to get you started.
1. Make sure you understand what a citation manager is, and what it is not. (I didn't understand at first, and regretted it, hence this post).
When I started my program I had no idea what a citation manager was. I had used online bibliography cites like CiteFast, BibMe, Citation Machine, etc. rather than creating my bibliographies by hand. I had heard of Mendeley, but I didn't really understand what it ways. Moreover, many of my undergrad professors encouraged us to do citations by hand so we would learn the format (my suggestion: do it twice and never again).
A citation manager is different from something that just spits out citations. Rather, it is a software that stores all of the things you read and allows you to store notes related to each reading, and tag them so that you can find them later. It is NOT a place do just dump things you read and format everything later. (That's what I did and two years down the line regretted it).
2. Pick a citation manager.
In my program folks seem to use three main citation managers: Zotero, EndNote or Mendeley.
I personally like Zotero because of its drag and drop feature where you can drag a PDF into your Zotero directly, and it will then take whatever metadata it can (fancy name for title, doi, authors, year published etc.) and start the citation for you. Usually you have to do some tweaking. It works really well for journal articles, less well for anything without a doi/grey literature which I happen to use a lot of. But the pros of Zotero have outweighed the cons for me. Zotero also has a plugin you can install so you can click it when you have a PDF or any other page open and it will go into the Zotero folder that is currently open (your Zotero has to be open for this to work).
I have also used EndNote because one of my advisors uses it. EndNote doesn't have the same drag and drop feature which is why I don't use it. I also prefer the tag system and layout in EndNote, but everyone has their own preference. You can export libraries from one to another.
My suggestion would be to play around with multiple citation managers and figure out which one you like best. If you have to switch it won't be the end of the world because you can export libraries, but if you can find one you like and stick with it it will make your life easier!
One other factor that might determine it for you is which is free. I believe a basic version of Zotero, EndNote and Mendeley are free, though it seems that because there is an "upgrade storage button" on Zotero's website if your school hasn't paid for that you might run into issues. Your library and/or programs office should be able to tell you this.
Okay, how do I use my citation manager?
1. Before you start, learn how to use the platform.
It can be hard to envision how to use a citation manager when you don't already have 100+ items in it (more specifically, they way you think about using it in the beginning with only a few readings might be very different from how you want your sorting mechanisms to work down the line when you have hundreds+ of readings in it).
Here are a few different ways to get started learning about your citation manager based on your learning style.
For audio-visual learners
Zotero: Here is a great video that I watched recently to rethink how I was using my Zotero. Main point: be generous with your tags, conservative with your folders. I would agree with this!
EndNote: Here is one for EndNote
Mendeley: And one for Mendeley
For those who learn by reading
Zotero: Check out this one from UW
Endnote: Check out MIT's EndNote help website, resource created by JournalPrep
Mendeley: Check out the Mendeley Start Guide
For those who learn by doing
If possible ask someone in your program like a librarian to provide a training to walk you through how to use the citation manager. Even though I had looked about both videos and written explanations, I was completely overwhelmed at the start of my program and unable to process how a new program worked without someone walking me through it. Librarians are a great resource. Use them!
2. Don't just dump readings in your citation manager
I know I said this already but I'm saying it again, because I didn't listen when people told me this. DON'T DO IT. Citation managers are a great resource IF use use them for their purpose, which is not just to store things. Their purpose is to help you cite and keep track of things, which means you have to organize them right away. It's like cleaning up your room if it's a complete mess - much easier if you have places to put things, and takes much less time if you clean as you go!
A few suggestions on how to do this:
1. Put the PDF you want into your main library, or a folder for the paper you are working on if relevant.
2. Extract any metadata that you can (this might happen automatically, if it doesn't work right click and click "Retrieve Metadata for PDF").
3. Look at what was processed, and fix anything that isn't right.
4. Add any notes you have, or take notes in the notes tab. Write a sentence or paragraph summary at the top of that notes page when you are done so that in a year when you come back to it you don't have to read the whole thing again to know if it's helpful for what you are doing.
5. Add any relevant tags - and again be generous with tags.
Now a few practical things to get started...
1. Install the plugins for your citation manager. There are probably three plugins you will want: for your internet browser, word and google docs.
I mentioned above there is an internet browser plugin that allows you to click it and the page you are looking at will go into your Zotero. You can access those here for Chrome, Safari and Firefox (Zotero calls these "connectors).
2. Once you have installed the desktop version of Zotero, you'll be able to use the word and google docs plugins too.
This adds a "zotero" tab in your word and google docs, but you do have to do a few things to make that work (see links above). These plugins/tabs are important because, after all this IS a citation manager which means you'll be using it to cite things in papers. When you are typing in words or google docs, what this means is that you can click the Zotero tab and then select the reading(s) you want to cite. At the end it will create an automatic alphabetized bibliography for you in the format you request. And that is why making sure all of your citation information is right, right from the start.
3. Make sure you sync your Zotero library so that it is stored online as well as on your computer.
The last thing you want is for your Zotero to crash, because it has all of your notes and tags in it. Make sure you sync your library so that you can access Zotero online (learn how to do that here), and back it up periodically. Syncing your Zotero and being able to access the online platform also allows you to create group libraries or collaborative projects (learn how to do that here).
4. Undo automatic tagging
I would suggest undoing Zotero's automatic tagging system. I chose to do this because otherwise there are way too many tags to shift through, many of which were unrelated to my interests and research. Here's how you do that: Edit -> Preferences -> General -> Miscellaneous -> Uncheck "automatically tag items with keywords and subject headings if you don't want Zotero to apply things for you.
Oof this was a long post, where do I start again?
Here's a recap.
1. Pick a citation manager. Play around with it a bit with a few resources.
2. Watch a video, read about something to see how things work. Have someone walk you through how to use the citation manager. Happy to help with this if you get stuck.
3. Install your citation manager's plugin to your internet browser.
4. Install the internet browser plugin, and make sure you have a Zotero tab in word and google docs.
5. Sync your Zotero.
6. Welcome to the world of easier citation management. Enjoy!
And as always, I'm no expert with this, but feel free to contact me or reply to this post with any questions. A huge thank you to Carla Lillvik, one of HGSE's librarians, for teaching our cohort to use Zotero.
With love,
Hania