In essence, all reference management tools do the same three things:
- Store information about books, articles, websites, etc. in one place.
- Organize this information in a useful way and make it searchable.
- Use the information in your reference manager to add in-text citations and a reference list to a document you are writing or to create a bibliography.
Use the table below to find which reference management tool best fits your needs.
| Criteria | EndNote | Sciwheel (formerly F1000Workspace) |
Zotero |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free to UCSF | |||
| Open source | |||
| Easy to learn | |||
| Works offline | |||
| Has online platform | |||
| Highly customizable | |||
| Collaborative | |||
| Syncs with multiple devices | |||
| Bulk upload capabilities | |||
| Fetches full text in batches | |||
| Handles large article libraries |