Citation Management

Citation management tools can help organize and cite your research, and a variety of options are available. Some of these options are listed below, with some pros and cons to each. 

Zotero

  • Free on desktop, up to 300MB of online storage
  • Desktop & cloud based options
  • PDF storage, reading & tagging
  • Annotate and highlight PDFs
  • MS Word & Google Docs plug-ins

RefWorks (NC State's Subscription to RefWorks has ended as of December 21, 2024)

  • Cloud based only
  • PDF storage, reading & tagging
  • Annotate and highlight PDFs
  • MS Word & Google Docs plug-ins

Mendeley

  • Free
  • Desktop & cloud based options
  • PDF storage, reading & tagging
  • Annotate and highlight PDFs
  • MS Word plug-in

EndNote

  • Costs money
  • Relatively complex to learn
  • Desktop & cloud based options
  • PDF storage, reading & tagging
  • Annotate and highlight PDFs
  • Excellent at handling large (1000+ sources) libraries
  • MS Word plug-in
 ZoteroMendeleyEndNote
Cost

Desktop: Free

Cloud storage: 300MB free, cost for further storage

Desktop: Free

Cloud storage: 2GB free, cost for more under Account

Desktop: Yes https://endnote.com/buy 

Web Classic: Free

PDF annotation & highlightingYesYesYes
Ability to search full text of PDFs and annotations YesNo - Title, author, & year onlyYes
Compatibility with word processing programsMS Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice MS Word, LibreOffice MS Word, Google Docs
Importing citations from other databasesYesYesYes
Group folders for collaborative workYesYesLimited to specific versions
Ability to write and cite synchronously from shared librariesYesNoVersion 21 & later only
Browser plugin to extract citations from pagesYesYesYes
Mobile capabilitiesYes, mobile appYes, browser onlyYes, browser only
Compatible with LaTeXYes; exports all major formatsYes: exports .Bibtex, RIS, and .XML  Yes; exports all major formats

 

Quick Citation Formatting

For more information, visit Cite Sources.

Questions? Ask Us!