If you are doing lots of research, you may want to choose a citation management program that will store the references you find. Each of these citation managment programs can be used to save, sort, and format citations. Each one has a bit of a learning curve, but in the long run using one of them can save you time. Essentially, they let you create a personalized database of sources that are ready to use in future projects. All of them will format bibliographies in a number of styles, but you always have to proof the results carefully.
Image courtesy of suttonhoo
Zotero is a free program that operates as a browser plug in for Firefox, with Chrome and Safari versions now available. Once you download Zotero, you can use it to save webpages, articles in databases, and book references from thelibrary catalog, Amazon,or Google Books. Your collected references can be synched from one compter to another and can be accessed online through any web broswer. Sort your references into project folders, tage them, add annotations and, when you want to create a reference, simply drag them into a document and choose a format. See the Zotero Quick Start Guide to get started or try our very brief guide; see Jason Puckett's guide for more tips and strategies.
A note for Zotero users - you can set up Zotero to recognize content in our databases by clicking on the gear icon, choosing preferences, clicking on Advanced, and adding under Resolver this URL: http://linksource.ebsco.com/linking.aspx
An optioal plug-in for Word (or Open Office) is available. If you use the Fiefox plugin, download the Word plugin. If you use the standalone version of Zotero, open Zotero and install the plugin found under Tools - Options - Cite. The plugins will then be found in Word under the Add-Ins tab (PC) or under the scripts menu (Mac). For an introduciton to using these plugins in a document, see this video created at Oregon State University.
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