Struggle to get your bibliography in order? Learn ultimate tips for using reference management software in research project! Be Motivated Academic!

Over the years spent in academia, I’ve reviewed hundreds of research papers and scientific theses. Do you know what is the number one issue that I’ve seen in the majority of them? 

Yes, you got this right. In many cases, the sources are inappropriately cited, references are incomplete, or even there aren’t citations at all. I don’t have to tell you that plagiarism is the one thing that you must avoid as a researcher – it’s just one of many ethical standards that we all need to follow. Remember that you should even cite when paraphrasing to avoid mosaic plagiarism. 

But here is the real problem – it can get difficult to ensure the quality of your citations if you have to manage dozens or even hundreds of citations in your academic paper. Before I heard about papers reference manager, I used to create a document in MS Word with my bibliography and was manually entering my citations. What a nightmare it was when I had to insert one more citation at the beginning of my text and I had to re-number all my citations. Possibly if I used Harvard referencing style, also known as Author-Date referencing style, it wouldn’t be an issue. But being an engineer, I have a knack for numbers…

What a relief it was when I learnt about the possibility of using reference management software in research documents. Let me tell you why it helped me to save so much time during my PhD degree and ensure I properly quote every single academic paper I used in my work. Of course, there are some aspects of using reference generators that you need to pay attention to so that they work for you and don’t cause any trouble. 

What is reference management software?

Let me start by defining what is reference management software in research context. Broadly speaking, reference management tools, also known as reference generators, can be designed as a database of all references you used in your research. Such tools help you discover, import and insert citations in the appropriate place in your academic text. These can also generate a bibliography for your document. 

What are the benefits of using reference management software in research project?

The benefits of using reference management software in research are vast, but here are the ones that I think are the most important ones: 

• you can store all the citations you used in your work in one place, meaning you won’t lose valuable literature references anymore 
• you can often store an annotated copy of the paper you read 
• you can modify the reference style to fit the requirements of the selected academic journal, meaning no more time wasted if you have to resubmit to another academic journal
• you can automatically generate the bibliography for your academic text 
• you can integrate multiple documents and combine their reference lists 

As you can see the benefits of using reference management software in research are endless and should, in principle, save you a lot of time that you can dedicate to doing your fascinating research. 

What is the best referencing software then? It is difficult to judge and I don’t want to get into details of each specific tool available. If you would like me to explain more on this subject, please do let me know in the comments below.

But I don’t want to leave you in the dark. In my view, I think Zotero is the best citation manager. It does have all the functionality of more popular tools, such as Easybibs, Mendeley or Endnote, but is actually an open-source tool. In need for Google Doc reference manager? Zotero has you covered. It integrates with MS Word, Google Doc, and even LibreOffice. 

Regardless of the benefits that the referencing software can bring to your research, it is still a tool that won’t do all the work for you. Here are my tips that will help you make the most of the reference managers. 

Tip #1: Select an appropriate reference style for your academic paper

One of the most common questions that I get from my students is what is Harvard method of referencing, how to go about citing a journal article in APA – American Psychological Association citation style – or even how to cite quotes from a website.

Even if you use the best reference manager, it can produce wrong outputs if the entries to your database are incorrect. This means that you need to pay particular attention to how each referencing style defines the representation of different types of texts. 

The reference management tools will let you import the most popular reference styles. Some will also let you create your own. It is, therefore, important to understand what information you need to input for each type of academic text. You can do this by following the guidelines for the selected style, such as cite this for me APA 7th edition style or simply the generic APA guidelines.

Tip #2: Use reference management software in research documents

Managing your references does not need to be challenging! You can of course manage sources in Word or even using a piece of paper. I remember I was doing this before I started my masters. But having learnt about the referencing software for Word was a game-changer for me! Did you know that you can, for example, add Mendeley to Word and directly insert in-text citations? You can essentially do the same in Zotero referencing software. 

Regardless of each software you use, do it wisely. Over the past years, I used RefWorks, Mendeley and Zotero. I experimented with this software and found Zotero to be the best online citation manager that meets my needs. I can import citations to any document, modify reference style and directly insert citations in Word and Google Doc. 

But I feel that Zotero is the best citation software for my needs is because it is independent of the big organisations and publishers. As you may know, Mendeley is developed by Elsevier and Endnote is developed by Clarivate. 

Tip #3: Even the best reference manager is still just a software  

Regardless of whether you are using Mendeley for referencing, Zotero referencing software, or another referencing tool, these are still what it says on the tin – just software. And as you probably know from your own experience, even the best software can fail sometimes. 

What does this mean to your work? It means that even if you use the best referencing tool, you still need to verify the entries in your bibliography. I cannot stress this enough when I speak with my students. When you import reference information from online sources, regardless of whether this is a journal paper or a website, the tool that you use will automatically recognise some of the descriptors and will select the type of document for you.

It is important to check whether the software did select the appropriate type for the document that you just imported and whether the collected data is complete. One of the most common comments I leave on my students’ work is that the citation data is incomplete or the reference style is incorrect. This applies to in-text citations – i.e. I can often see (Hanak, N/D) rather than (Hanak, 2021) – and bibliography – i.e. M.S.P.S.M.V.D.P. Hanak,  International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 2021 rather than Santos, M.P.S, Manovic, V., and Hanak, D.P. (2021), Black liquor gasification with calcium looping for carbon-negative pulp and paper industry, International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 110, 103436.

Tip #4: Merge your in-text citations 

Getting in-text citations can be tricky at first. But once you understand two basic styles, the numerical and author-date ones, citing your sources will become much easier. One of the key challenges that I see in academic documents is the fact that people often don’t merge in-text citations. 

What does this mean? When you use more than one citation to support a single statement in your academic paper, you would need to refer to all papers in that sentence. And it is always advisable to merge citations in a single bracket, unless otherwise stated by the journal guidelines. 

In this regard, the numerical style in text referencing example can be as follows: “However, conventional flotation may not be the most effective way to recover waste coal if the coal tailings comprise large volumes of fines and clays [13,14].” rather than “However, conventional flotation may not be the most effective way to recover waste coal if the coal tailings comprise large volumes of fines and clays [13][14].”

The corresponding Harvard in text referencing example will be: “However, conventional flotation may not be the most effective way to recover waste coal if the coal tailings comprise large volumes of fines and clays (van Netten et al., 2015, 2016)” rather than “However, conventional flotation may not be the most effective way to recover waste coal if the coal tailings comprise large volumes of fines and clays (van Netten et al., 2015) (van Netten et al., 2016)”.

It’s a small imperfection but getting it right does give your readers an impression that you looked at every single detail of your academic document before turning it in.

Tip #5: Select an appropriate citation style for each document

When it comes to academic citations, we cannot (unfortunately! apply the one size fits all approach. This is difficult at first. I struggled as well and was asking my supervisor how to cite a journal in APA, how to cite textbooks, or even how to cite quotes from a book! And the best one of all? How to cite websites?! 

For each type of academic document, you will need to follow a specific format when it comes to bibliographic entry. This means that for each type of academic document you will need to specify a slightly different set of information. For example, for journal papers, you will need to include at least journal volume, issue and pages, whereas for the website you’d need to include the website URL link and the date you last accessed that resource. 

Importantly, you should be able to find the specific referencing style in guidelines to authors provided by the journal you aiming to submit your work to or at your library. 

Conclusions

Getting references right can be tricky at first, especially if you’re doing it for the first time and don’t use any referencing software. Using reference management software can save you a significant amount of time that you can dedicate to other activities in your life. But remember, even the best referencing tool is still a tool, and you need to ensure that the data you enter is accurate and representative. 

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