UW Libraries supports three citation managers: EndNote Basic, Mendeley, and Zotero. These tools provide the same basic features:
The Campus Library CS librarians offer instructional support for Zotero.
If you are interested in EndNote Basic or Medeley, information about these systems is available on the Libraries' citation management software guide: you may find the comparison chart (at the bottom of the page) particularly useful. As of 2021, UW Libraries no longer supports RefWorks. If you would like to migrate references from RefWorks to Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote Basic, please see these instructions.
Zotero is an open-source citation management tool that helps you collect, manage, and cite research sources. Zotero offers web-based and desktop versions. The desktop version is highly recommended because it features a word processing plugin to create in-text citations and reference lists (see instructions below). To get started with Zotero, follow these steps:
Here's Zotero's support documentation for more details on Zotero features and issues. This documentation list includes a link to Community-developed Video Tutorials.
Learn about Zotero word processing plugins for Google Docs and Microsoft Word. We highly recommend this for creating in-text citations and bibliographies using IEEE, APA, and MLA citation styles! The Zotero processing plugins will allow you to insert citations into your text body and create a reference list at the end of your paper. The following videos demonstrate how this process works in Google Docs and Microsoft Word.
Zotero and Google Docs
Zotero and Microsoft Word
IEEE
APA
MLA (often used in CSS 301)