Citation managers, or bibliographic management software, can save you hours by keeping track of your sources and formatting your bibliographies.
| EndNote | EasyBib | Zotero | Refworks | Procite | |
| Cost | $115.95-299.95* | Free | Free | $170-329 | |
| Web based | No | Yes | No | No | |
| Import references from online databases | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Store references online and share with others | No | Yes | Yes | No | |
| MS Word integration | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Create custom bibliographic styles | Yes | No | No, but can import EndNote styles | Yes | |
| Requires online connection | No | Yes | No | No | |
| Other | Available for Windows and MacOS | Requires Firefox browser |
*Free for NDSU students.
Zotero
Zotero (pronounced "zoh-TAIR-oh") is a Firefox addon that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It's easy to use, lives in your web browser where you do your work, and best of all it's free. Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies using Word or OpenOffice.
Since it's a Firefox plugin, it automatically updates itself periodically to work with new online sources and new bibliographic styles.
Zotero Quick Start Guide
See also this great guide published by the Zotero developers themselves. Also available as a PDF.
The template for this guide was created by Jason Puckett and licensed by Georgia State University Library under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
You may reproduce any part of it for noncommercial purposes as long as credit is included.