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Citation Management Tools

This guide provides an overview of citation and research manager applications available to CWRU School of Law students, faculty and staff.

Getting Started

Citation
The formal acknowledgement of the use of the words or ideas of another; a note of reference, explanation, or comment usually placed below the text on a printed page.
Tool
A web-based or downloadable software program or application (an app).
Bibliography
The works or a list of the works referred to in a text, consulted by the author in its production. Synonyms include: reference list or works cited.
Citation manager
Citation management tools allow you to collect, organize, and store information resources in one place. They also simplify the process of citing references in articles or research papers, as well as generating bibliographies in a wide range of citation styles.
Extraction
The act of selecting excerpts or terms and copying out or citing.
Storage space
When choosing a citation management system, check how much storage space is available for the option you prefer. Free storage space is usually limited in size.

Mendeley

Mendeley is a free, easy to use bibliographic management software—tool that helps you collect, organize, cite and share research. Available via Mac, Windows, Linux, Mendeley provides up to 2Gb of online storage and up to 5 private groups of up to 25 members. Although Word integration is excellent, support from the publisher has been inconsistent. Over 1,000 citation styles, including The Bluebook, are supported.

EndNote

EndNote is a software program that can help you manage your references and format  bibliographies and manuscripts. 

Zotero

Zotero is a free, easy to use bibliographic management software—tool that helps you collect, organize, cite and share research. Available via Mac, Windows, and Linux, Zotero creates references and bibliographies directly inside Word, LibreOffice or Google Docs. Over 9,000 citation styles, including The Bluebook, are supported. See Kelvin Smith Library's Zotero guide for more on features and installation.

ZotFile

Automatically rename, move, and attach PDFs (or other files) to Zotero items, sync PDFs from your Zotero library to your (mobile) PDF reader (e.g. an iPad, Android tablet, etc.) and extract annotations from PDF files. See UC Berkeley's guide for how to install ZotFile.

Perma.cc

Perma.cc is a service created by the Harvard Law Library.  It's goal is to ensure that references never disappear.  It purports to keep any links referenced in your research or publication from changing or disappearing.  Its goal is to fight link rot. Go to guides.library.harvard.edu/cite/permacc for details. 

Please note that currently the Citation management tools we discuss in this guide do not yet automate the inclusion of Perma.cc links in citations saved by them.  Hopefully that will become a forthcoming development for these tools.

Lexis & Westlaw

Lexis+

  • Select the text you wish to copy or highlight.  A drop-down menu will appear. 
  • Choose Copy (Advanced). The text you wish to copy will appear in a preview box. 
  • Select the style format you wish to use, e.g. ALWD or Bluebook.
  • Check whether to hyperlink the citation and either underline or italicize the case name.
  • Click Copy & Close.

 

Westlaw Edge

  • Select the text you wish to copy or highlight.  A drop-down menu will appear. 
  • Choose Copy with Reference (ALWD)  or click the ellipses () to change the citation style format and then click Copy with Reference.

Other Citation Managers

Selected Books & Articles

Books

Articles

John R. Beatty, Citation Databases for Legal Scholarship, 39 Legal Reference Services Quarterly 1 (2020) DOI: 10.1080/0270319X.2020.1738198

Joshua F. Beatty, Zotero: A Tool for Constructionist Learning in Critical Information Literacy, in Critical Library Pedagogy Handbook (2016).  Google Scholar.

Amy Butros and Sally Taylor, Managing Information: Evaluating and Selecting Citation Management Software, A Look at EndNote, RefWorks, Mendeley and Zotero (2010).  Google Scholar.

Alison Hicks and Caroline Sinkinson, Examining Mendeley: Designing Learning Opportunities for Digital Scholarship, in 15 portal: Project MUSE 531 (2015). 

Alison Monahan, Tech Tools to Simplify Legal Research and Writing, 44 Student Law. 18 (2016). HeinOnline.

Mitchell L. Silverman,  MLZ: Citation Management for Law School, 18 AALL Spectrum 23 (2013). HeinOnline.