Library Hacks » Citing Sources

Wrangle your resources

Ciara Healy — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:43:53 +0000

Get wise: citation managers are time-savers!

“I read an article about that a while ago. No – wait. I cited it in a paper… What was the title again? The author’s name started with a J, I think.”

Perkins-Bostock Library offers a series of workshops for Zotero, RefWorks and EndNote. If you’d like to sign up, please do so here. Some of the benefits of these citation managers include storage of .pdfs or links to .pdfs, organization of citations and exporting bibliographies according to a variety of styles. Each of these programs also allows you to cite your references while you compose your research papers.

If you are trying to decide which workshop to take, ask your favorite professor what she or he uses to manage their citations. (In general, Zotero is used by researchers in the humanities, and EndNote is preferred by scientists and social scientists.) Keeping your research organized is smart and will be beneficial to you when it comes time to write your senior thesis, study abroad or write your graduate school applications.

Zotero 2.0

Diane Harvey — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:58:07 +0000

A while ago, Library Hacks blogged about Zotero, an open source research organizer/citation management system developed at George Mason University. One of their tag lines is “Good bye 3×5 cards, hello Zotero.” (Yes, we know that many of you don’t even remember taking notes and saving references on 3×5 cards…).

A lot has happened since those blog posts, including the release of Zotero 2.0. The new version has features that enhance collaboration and information sharing, one of Zotero’s four key functions (collecting, organizing, citing and collaborating). Your Zotero collection can now be synced between multiple computers, and you can backup your files on Zotero’s web server. If you want to collaborate with others to compile material in Zotero, you can now create a group, access material in real time, and move materials among group members. Groups can be public (here’s a list of public Zotero groups that you can join or view) or private (for a course assignment, research or work-related project).

What are some advantages of using Zotero? It’s fairly easy to learn to use it, it works with a wide variety of materials, the collaborative features are great, and it’s free.

NYU Libraries created a great site that compares Zotero, RefWorks and EndNote. Interested in migrating from EndNote to Zotero? Check out the useful migration instructions prepared by George Mason University.

More information about Zotero 2.0 can be found here. The Libraries are looking at how we can support Zotero at Duke. Stay tuned.

What really matters when citing sources?

Emily Daly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:12:44 +0000

You may know that two major style manuals — APA and MLA — have released new editions in the last six or so months. And if you’re aware of that fact, you undoubtedly know that both editions contain inconsistencies in their examples and enough errors to require APA to post an 8-page list of corrections and then replace its first run copies with a second printing.

The new rules have driven confused and frustrated researchers to sources such as APA’s blog, which provides examples and attempts to explain the more complicated rules (check out the DOI/URL flowchart — yes, this rule requires a flowchart), or Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (OWL), which hosts APA and MLA resources that received 3.5 million and 2.5 million hits, respectively, during September and October alone, according to the coordinator of OWL.

It is evident from these stats alone that librarians and faculty have spent countless hours supporting the researchers and students who have spent even more time formatting manuscripts to meet the unbending rules of CSE, APA, MLA and enumerable others.

As Barbara Fister posits in her ACRLog post, is this time well spent? Is research somehow made more valid when its footnotes are perfectly formatted, its works cited page spaced just so? Have we spent so much time agonizing over comma placement and tracking down database names that we’ve lost sight of the whole point of citing sources in the first place? Do our budding scholars realize that citing sources is not merely an academic hazing ritual of sorts, causing them hours of extra labor after their papers are written?

It would seem that the newest editions of APA and MLA are only muddying the waters, making it harder for researchers — especially novice ones — to achieve the true goal of citing sources: to give credit to the scholars their research builds upon and to make it as easy as possible for their readers to learn more about that work.

And if we can agree on that primary goal, how do we get back to emphasizing it rather than the arcane rules?

Term papers by the numbers…

Linda Martinez — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:32:20 +0000

Ready to start that term paper? Not sure how to start? The University of Minnesota Libraries have created an assignment calculator to help students organize their time to meet their research needs. Start with today’s date, enter the date assignment is due, a timeline is provided, with research milestones. Use Duke Library links for local, on-site research assistance. For example, How do I begin my research? or Find a Librarian in my subject area? or ask for help are just a few of the services available to you through the Duke Libraries.

Timesaver=Lifesaver

libraryhacks — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:47:00 +0000

It’s the one little line in your assignment that can lead to hours of work:

Format your paper in APA (or MLA, or Chicago, or Turabian…)

Inserting correct citations and a properly formatted bibliography used to involve complicated manuals, memorization of arcane facts about space placement after a period, and a lot of hair pulling. Kudos to those who want to keep citing by hand…but for those who don’t, it’s….

REFWORKS to the RESCUE!

We’re kicking off a whole week of RefWorks training, which will run between March 30th to April 3rd, to introduce you to your new best citation friend.

What is RefWorks? It’s a web-based program that collects all your research and references in one handy spot, search and select them, and automatically generates citations and bibliography in whatever style your Professor is asking for.

In other words, RefWorks is a Lifesaver!

Drop by and learn more all week:

Mon. March 30: Bryan Center 12-2 pm

Tue. March 31: Lilly Library 1-3 pm

Wed. April 1st: Perkins Library 1-3 pm

Thu. April 2nd: East Campus Marketplace 12-2

Fri. April 3rd: Bryan Center Plaza 12-2 pm

Written by Kyla Sweet-Chavez

Ultimate Citing: EndNote VS. RefWorks

libraryhacks — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:53:08 +0000

In the competitive world of Ultimate Citing, two kingpins rule the ring…RefWorks and EndNote, the academic world’s leading bibliographic management tools. Lucky for you, Duke has a subscription to both, so the choice is yours!

	RefWorks	EndNote
Registration	Register for your free account here	Download for free here
Access	Web-based (Any computer w/ Internet access)	Not web-based. Access through any computer(s) in which you’ve installed EndNote
Most Useful for…	Collaborative projects, term papers, coursework	Complex research projects, dissertations, lengthy tomes
# of Bibliographic styles	3000+	800+
Classes	Register here	Register here
PC and Mac Compatability	Web-based, so will work on any computer w/ internet	Versions available for both MAC and PC

Neither RefWorks or EndNote have figured out how to write your papers for you, but both are excellent tools for managing and formatting citations. Learn more about RefWorks here and EndNote here

Written by Hannah Rozear

Make citations in Facebook

libraryhacks — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:51:39 +0000

In further Facebook takes over the universe (at least the parts not already claimed by Google) news, there’s a new application in Facebook called CiteMe. You enter the title of the book you want to cite, click go, and the app spits out a formatted citation in one of five styles (APA, Chicago, Harvard. MLA, or Turabian).

It uses the WorldCat library catalog to find books, so it won’t be helpful for citing journal articles. If you’re working with journal articles, you can check our Citing Sources pages for examples and do them by hand, or get started with RefWorks or EndNote, the two citation managers Duke has site licenses for, or Zotero, a free online citation manager. Lots of choices, but CiteMe is a nice little addition to the mix!

Written by Phoebe Acheson

RefWorks is here!

Emily Daly — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:03:13 +0000

Some of you avid fans of RefWorks will be happy to hear that you may now access this online research management system FREE through Duke’s OIT.

For those of you who haven’t yet been wowed by RefWorks’ user-friendly interface and robust functionality (think Works Cited pages in seconds; in-text citations in a couple of clicks; unlimited storage space for citations and notes), take a few minutes to create a free account:

Go to www.refworks.com/refworks from any computer on campus
Click on Sign Up for an Individual Account
Enter your information and click Register

You’ll find that RefWorks is fairly intuitive, but it’s worth taking a look at the Quick Start Guide or the step-by-step RefWorks tutorials when learning how to format bibliographies and import citations from databases to your account.

And if you’re off-campus, never fear: Just enter Duke’s group code RWDukeUniv.

Questions about RefWorks? Contact Emily Daly. And let us know your thoughts about Duke’s latest time-saving tool for researchers!

Connotea — another look

Catherine Shreve — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:43:40 +0000

In Ted’s recent comments on connotea, he said he enjoyed it, but found that connotea was not such a great citation manager; it doesn’t always gather the metadata needed. On the connotea site, it explains that it is “specially designed for scientists and clinicians,” so it gathers bibliographic data better for some sites than others.

I agree, connotea is no substitute for a bibliographic reference manager like Endnote (to which Duke subscribes) or Refworks. I also agree that it’s “downright fun!” As a librarian, I use it as an academic networking tool, to find, track and tag resources as I come across them. It’s very handy for retrieving items on a particular topic, and for creating feeds for specific classes–I tag resources with the course name.

Ted was also concerned about messy tags. The “related tags” on the right belong to other users, who may create them however they’d like.

That’s both the beauty and the chaos of a Web 2.0 tool–everyone gets to play, and you can follow their leads, or not.

So, the short answer is: the value of connotea depends on your purpose. For a free web-based citation manager, you might like to try zotero (from an earlier LibraryHacks post):

The open-source Zotero (part 1 / part 2) is [a] Firefox extension that allows you to store, retrieve and organize your reference sources for a more streamlined citation process.

Has anyone out there done more than a first foray into zotero? Please send us your comments.

Save time! Learn EndNote!

Emily Daly — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:19:40 +0000

Start your summer research with a bang by learning to use EndNote, a reference management tool that is sure to save you time and frustration. Duke faculty, students and staff may download EndNote to personal or work computers, free of charge.

Perkins Library is offering a free introductory EndNote session on Tuesday, May 27 from 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM in Bostock Library, Room 023. We’ll provide an orientation to the software, show you how to set up your personal EndNote library and then teach you to format a bibliography in a couple of keystrokes.

Interested? Register today! And stay tuned for more Intro and Advanced EndNote sessions this summer!