Citation Management
Citation management tools can help organize and cite your research, and a variety of options are available. Some of these options are listed below, with some pros and cons to each.
Zotero
- Free on desktop, up to 300MB of online storage
- Desktop & cloud based options
- PDF storage, reading & tagging
- Annotate and highlight PDFs
- MS Word & Google Docs plug-ins
RefWorks (NC State's Subscription to RefWorks will end on December 21, 2024)
- Cloud based only
- PDF storage, reading & tagging
- Annotate and highlight PDFs
- MS Word & Google Docs plug-ins
Mendeley
- Free
- Desktop & cloud based options
- PDF storage, reading & tagging
- Annotate and highlight PDFs
- MS Word plug-in
EndNote
- Costs money
- Relatively complex to learn
- Desktop & cloud based options
- PDF storage, reading & tagging
- Annotate and highlight PDFs
- Excellent at handling large (1000+ sources) libraries
- MS Word plug-in
| Zotero | RefWorks | Mendeley | EndNote | |
| Cost | Desktop: Free Cloud storage: 300MB free, cost for further storage | Free for NC State users | Desktop: Free Cloud storage: 2GB free, cost for more under Account | Desktop: Yes https://endnote.com/buy Web Classic: Free |
| PDF annotation & highlighting | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ability to search full text of PDFs and annotations | Yes | Annotations only | No - Title, author, & year only | Yes |
| Compatibility with word processing programs | MS Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice | MS Word, Google Docs | MS Word, LibreOffice | MS Word, Google Docs |
| Importing citations from other databases | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Group folders for collaborative work | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited to specific versions |
| Ability to write and cite synchronously from shared libraries | Yes | Yes | No | Version 21 & later only |
| Browser plugin to extract citations from pages | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile capabilities | Yes, mobile app | Yes, browser only | Yes, browser only | Yes, browser only |
| Compatible with LaTeX | Yes; exports all major formats | Yes; exports BibTeX, RIS, .TSV, XML | Yes: exports .Bibtex, RIS, and .XML | Yes; exports all major formats |
Quick Citation Formatting
For more information, visit Cite Sources.
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