Citation Management
What is a citation manager?
A citation manager is a tool or program that helps you collect, organize, and create citations for your research in whatever format you prefer. See our comparison of citation managers to help you decide which one to use for your needs.
The University licenses RefWorks, and makes it available to everyone in the UT community. Learn more about it here.
Why would I want to use one?
If you are doing an extensive research project and want to keep track of your citations, it is a good idea to use a citation manager because all your citations are in once place where you can:
They are particularly useful when you are researching an area where you know you will do further research down the road. If you plan to write many papers on a particular subject, a citation manager will keep all the information together for you.
Remind me, what are citations again?
When you write a research paper, you generally need to refer to any resources you used for information, whether these are published papers in peer-reviewed journals, websites, or interviews you conducted in person. Citations describe what those resources are, including titles, authors, publication dates, journal titles, and other identifying information. Citations often need to be in a particular format, such as MLA or APA. This is dependent on the subject area or particular course that you are writing a paper for.
Popular citation management tools available for free:
For help deciding which one to use, see our comparison.
Double check your citations that RefWorks (or any of the other managers) provides using these style guides:
