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Wellesley College Research Guides

Thesis & Departmental Honors Students

Why Use a Citation Manager?

A citation manager stores all your citations in a searchable database so that you can:

  • Keep your research organized.
  • Format your footnotes or endnotes automatically in the style of your choice (APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.).
  • Format your bibliography automatically.
  • Insert citations or references into a Word document with a click.
  • Create and format an annotated bibliography.

Citation tools such as EndNote and Zotero are great for gathering, managing, and organizing your research. 

EndNote will allow you to:

  • Store your references and link them to your PDF files
  • Organize your references into Groups
  • Create bibliographies
  • Work with Microsoft Word to format your in-text citations and references
  • Switch between many reference styles, with the touch of a button

 

Zotero will allow you to:

  • add web content your personal library with a single click
  • collect all your research in a single, searchable interface
  • organize your research into collections that act like iTunes playlists
  • assign tags to your library items to organize your research using your own keywords
  • create footnotes, endnotes, in-text citations, or bibliographies
  • automatically synchronize your data across devices

 

We can help you learn these tools and citation styles. Just ask us or contact a subject specialist directly! For more help, look at the examples on the library's citation guide.

What citation style should I use?

Use the style recommended by your advisor or choose one of the major styles below based on the discipline for your thesis:

MLA Used in literature, arts, and the humanities
Chicago

Notes & Bibliography system used in history, arts, and humanities

APA Used in psychology and other social sciences