A Very Good Tool for Generating Citations, Reference Lists and Bibliographies

April 7, 2015
A few days ago, we published a list of some of the best web tools to help you manage and organize your citations and references. One of the useful tools we forgot to include to that list is RefMe. We are pretty sure several of you already know about it. However, here is a concise review of RefMe for those of you not familiar with it.

RefMe is a web tool and mobile app that you can use to automate citations, reference lists and bibliographies.  RefMe also offers a bunch of powerful features that will definitely help students in their research. Some of these features include :

• Generate citations by scanning book or journal barcodes using your phone’s camera.
• No Barcode? Search by Book/Article Title, ISBN, ISSN, DOI or URL.
• Citing a website? Simply paste in the URL or use RefME.com, which syncs with the app and is perfect for websites.
• A wide variety of citation styles including APA, MLA, Chicago and AMA as well as most school/college-specific styles. 
• Add notes to your citations, both in the app and at RefME.com.
• Export via Email or Evernote using the app.
• Send your work straight to MS Word, EndNote and more from RefME.com.

RefMe me is available as web tool, iOS app and Android app.

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6 of The Best Web Tools for Organizing and Managing Citations, References and Bibliographies

April 1, 2015
One of the onerous parts in essay and academic writing is the bibliography section. Managing, organizing and citing references can sometimes be a real challenge especially if you don't keep track of what and who you cite. The last thing you would want after a strenuous writing task is a messy bibliography  with one reference missing page numbers the other needs publication date or, worse of all, having to go back to your sources to check for the source of  that quotation you included in your conclusion. If you find yourself constantly grappling with  problems  such as these, the web tools below are absolutely something you might need to consider. These are some of the best applications for organizing, managing, and publishing bibliographies, citations and references. Some of these softwares are integrated with Google Scholar.

1- Zotero

"Zotero collects all your research in a single, searchable interface. You can add PDFs, images, audio and video files, snapshots of web pages, and really anything else. Zotero automatically indexes the full-text content of your library, enabling you to find exactly what you're looking for with just a few keystrokes."
2- RefWorks

RefWorks -- an online research management, writing and collaboration tool -- is designed to help researchers easily gather, manage, store and share all types of information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies.
3- Mendeley

Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research. Here is what you can do with Mendeley:

• Automatically generate bibliographies
• Collaborate easily with other researchers online
• Easily import papers from other research software
• Find relevant papers based on what you’re reading
• Access your papers from anywhere online
• Read papers on the go, with our new iPhone app

4-Endnote

EndNote gives you the tools you need for searching, organizing and sharing your research. It allows you to easily create bibliographies while writing your next paper with features like Cite While You Write . Maximize your time with features like finding full text for your references and automatically updating records. Whether you’re on your desktop, online, or iPad, EndNote’s syncing capabilities let you access all of your references, attachments, and groups from anywhere.

5- EasyBib

Create accurate MLA, APA, and Chicago style citations in seconds by scanning a book bar code or by typing the name of a book. Build and manage your works cited. Once done, email your citations and then export your citations to EasyBib.com's popular bibliography management service.

6- Citeulike

Citeulike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references.Some of its features include:

• Easily store references you find online
• Discover new articles and resources
• Automated article recommendationsNEW
• Share references with your peers
• Find out who's reading what you're reading
• Store and search your PDFs

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EasyBib Tool- An Incredibly Helpful App for Citing Websites

February 13, 2015
EasyBib Tools is definitely a must have app for college and research students. With one click you can generate citations for websites and create bibliographies. It is a time saving tool for sure but I would not trust it one hundred per cent, always go through the citations and make sure they are properly formatted.

EasyBib tools also provides you with a bunch of other nifty features such as credibility ratings of the website you are visiting. You can also build a fully-formatted, alphabetized, and Word-processor-ready bibliography of all the sources you have cited.

Generating citations is free for only MLA style other styles such as APA and Chicago are for premium users.Also, to save and access your citations and bibliographies you create you will have to register with EasyBib Tools. Registration is free.

Watch this video to learn more about EasyBib Tools

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Internet Citation Checklist for Students

January 12, 2015
In an earliest post I shared Internet Citation Organizer, which is a tool from Read Write Think to help students record citation information to use when citing online sources. In this post, I am sharing another useful graphic organizer from Read Write Think  that students can use with the previous tool to properly cite Internet sources.

Internet Citation Checklist is a one page PDF document that features five key things students have to consider when working on their citation sources. As a teacher, you can download and print off this document and use it as a handout accompanying every research project students are to work on.
Thanks to Sara Dennis through whose lesson plan I learned about this resource.

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A Wonderful Tool to Help Students Cite Internet Sources

January 12, 2015
Internet Citation Organizer is an excellent graphic organizer provided for free by Read Write Think. Students can use this fillable PDF document to help them record bibliographical information of the resources they use from Internet. These pieces of information can later on be used to properly cite and reference online materials and websites.

Internet Citation Organizer is definitely a must have document for teachers. It can be used in any research project or classroom task that requires drawing on the net for extra resources and information. Internet Citation Organizer is also fillable which means that students can use it right on their browsers. For each source they want to cite they need to type in information such as : name of author, title, web address, copyright date and date found.They can also use “Print Citation Organizer” on top right hand corner of the document to print a copy of their cited sources or use “ Reset Citation Organizer” to start a new.

Thanks to Sara Dennis through whose lesson plan I learned about this resource.

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Great Resources to Teach Students about Plagiarism and Citation Styles

November 7, 2014
One of my favourite sources for information and guidelines regarding referencing and citation styles is the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). I have heard several professors (in the humanities, at least) recommend it to graduate students. But there are also several other resources student researchers and academics can draw on to hone in their research writing skills. This page from Plagiarism.org features a plethora of excellent materials and citation sources that are all available online or in the form of PDF documents , free to download and use.

Here are some of the examples of the citation materials you will find there. These resources are arranged under three main categories: Humanities, Sciences, and Social sciences.

• Writer's Handbook: Chicago Style Documentation
• Writer's Handbook: Chicago Style Documentation
• Writer's Handbook: MLA Style Documentation
• Writer's Handbook: MLA Style Documentation
• Writer's Handbook: APA Style Documentation
• Writer's Handbook: APSA Documentation

There are also other sections in the page that provide some useful information on a variety of topics related to writing and plagiarism such as : how to paraphrase, how to quote materials, definition of a footnote and bibliography, tools to check for plagiarism, and many more.
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