Citations - The Basics: Overview
Are citations really necessary? When should you cite, and how do you go about citing your sources?
This page provides an overview of the importance of citations in the academic environment and introduces citation management strategies.
- Watch the video, "Why Citations Matter."
- Review "Citation Management Tools" to discover the various citation management platforms you have access to as a Rutgers student.
Video: Why Citations Matter
Citation Management Tools
Citation management (a.k.a. bibliographic management or reference management) is a very important part of the research process. Citation management tools can streamline the research process by making it easier and simpler to store, organize, retrieve, cite, and share references and manage PDFs, images, etc.
Rutgers Libraries offers access to several different tools, including:
EndNote [Rutgers Restricted]
- EndNote is a citation management tool available to all Rutgers affiliated students, faculty, and staff.
Mendeley
- Mendeley allows for collaboration between users and 2GB of free cloud storage. Organize PDFs of research papers, including annotations and highlights and maintain your own reference library. Automatically generate bibliographies and insert citations into a word processor.
- A web-based research management tool that allows you to import references from many electronic databases and catalogs, include citations in your paper, build a bibliography using a variety of citation styles, and create a bibliography in a choice of formats.
Zotero
- An add-on for the Firefox browser that allows you to collect, manage, and cite your research sources.
- Zotero Research Guide
Contains examples of how to use Zotero with some of the library resources at Rutgers University.