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Full Tutorial: How To Use Mendeley Including The Web Importer & Mendeley Cite

By: Derek Jansen | Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | January 2018 (Updated September 2023)

If you’re fumbling about trying to manage citations and references by hand (or using Microsoft Word’s terrible reference manager), please stop now. Here, we’ll show you how to use Mendeley Reference Manager to save a huge amount of time on referencing, while also ensuring it’s 100% correctly formatted , every time. 

What We’ll Cover

• What (exactly) is Mendeley Reference Manager?
• Registering and downloading Mendeley
• The Mendeley Library interface
• How to add resources to your Mendeley Library
• How to manage resources in Mendeley
• How to use Mendeley within Microsoft Word
• Ask your questions …

What (exactly) is Mendeley?

Let’s start by quickly addressing two important starting questions – namely, “ What is Mendeley? ” and “ Why should you even use it? ”.

Simply put, Mendeley is a fantastic free tool that makes the task of referencing a lot easier – and infinitely more accurate. Essentially, you load up the reference information into Mendeley just once, and then Mendeley makes sure that all of your in-text citations, as well as your reference list are perfectly formatted according to your university’s required referencing system – for example, APA, Harvard, etc.

In a nutshell, Mendeley takes care of the tiresome and error-prone task of managing and formatting citations and references , saving you loads of time and ensuring that it’s all done with 100% accuracy – which is near impossible if you try to do it manually. If you’re undertaking any sort of academic writing, you need to get comfy with Mendeley , pronto! This is especially true if you’re writing a longer-format piece such as a dissertation or thesis .

Downloading & Registering Mendeley

The first thing you’ll need to do is register a Mendeley account . This is free and takes just a minute to complete. You can register by visiting the Mendeley site here .

The next thing you’ll need to do is add the Mendeley Web Importer to your browser (for example, Chrome or Firefox). The web importer is a browser plugin that allows you to quickly add web-based resources to your Mendeley library. I’ll show you how to use this a little later in the video, but for now, you just need to add the web importer to your browser – you can access that here .

Last but certainly not least, you’ll need to get the Mendeley Cite plugin . This plugin is what connects Mendeley (or more specifically, all the reference data you’ll have in your Mendeley Library) with Microsoft Word , which you’ll use to write up your work. Again, this is a free plugin and you can access it here .

At this point, you might be thinking “Well, what about the desktop app?”. If you’d like to use the desktop application to manage your Mendeley library, you’re most welcome to, but we’ve found the web version to be just as good. The web version also ensures that all of your reference data are always perfectly synchronised on the cloud, so there’s no risk of synchronisation issues. All that said, there’s no problem if you want to use the desktop version – everything we cover here will still be relevant 🙂

The Mendeley Interface

Now that we have all the puzzle pieces in place, let’s look at the main interface, so that you can understand what each section does and how to get the most out of Mendeley.

The “home base” of Mendeley is what’s called the “ Library ”. You can access that here , or just click the “Library” button in the top right corner of the main Mendeley site. The Library area is where you will manage all of the reference data. On the left-hand side, you’ll see a selection of options. The first section is essentially a set of filters, providing different ways in which you can sift through your reference data. Most commonly, you’ll use the “ All references ” option, but you can also view recently added references, favourites and so on.

The next section is the collections section. Collections are essentially folders in which you can place related papers in whichever organisation system you like. For example, if your study involves analysing four key variables, you might have a collection for each variable. Or if you’re looking at an issue through different disciplinary lenses, you might have a collection for each lens. 

Continuing down, the final section is the groups section. Groups allow you to share references and collaborate with up to 25 people . This is useful, for example, if you’re working on a group research project and want to share reference info between group members.

 Moving to the top of the page, you’ll see a button labelled Notebook . The notebook is a space where you can jot down any general notes you want to make. These notes are called “Pages” in Mendeley, and it’s important to note that they’re not directly linked to any specific reference . Therefore, this is a useful place to add general thoughts that you can revisit later. If you do want to make notes that are specific to a resource , you can do that using a feature called “ annotations ”, which we’ll look at in the next section.

How To Add References To Mendeley

The first thing you’ll need to do is to add your actual reference data to Mendeley. This is the least exciting part for most students, but the good news is that Mendeley offers quite a few options in this regard.

Option 1: Adding reference data manually

Manually adding reference data is Mendeley is the slowest and most time-intensive route, but it’s useful to discuss it first so that you can see exactly what information Mendeley captures .

To add a resource manually, click the “Add new” button, followed by “Add entry manually”. As you can see, Mendeley then allows you to manually enter all the key information such as the author, date, title and so on. One thing to notice is that depending on the type of resource , the available fields within Mendeley will change . For example, if you select “Television broadcast”, the fields will be different from that of a journal article or a patent.

A useful thing to note here is that you can fast-track this process by using an “ identifier ”. For example, you can search for a DOI or Pubmed ID and it will auto-populate the info.

Option 2: Upload a PDF

The second way to add reference data to Mendeley is to upload the PDF article . Naturally, this is only useful if you have a PDF copy of the resource, and if it is a journal article. For the most part, when you upload a journal article PDF, Mendeley will be able to auto-populate the fields , which will save you the time and effort of filling it in yourself (although it’s always a good idea to double-check this automated data).

The main benefit of using this method is that it means Mendeley will include a copy of the PDF within the Mendeley interface , which makes it easy for you to access the article whenever needed. This approach will also allow you to make highlighted annotations and notes within the article itself. Of course, I’ll show you how to do this in the next section.

Option 3: Use the Mendeley Web Importer

The next way to add reference info to Mendeley is to use the Web Importer, which is the browser plugin we installed earlier. To use the Web Importer, simply visit the URL for any given resource (e.g., a news article, or a journal article within an academic database) and then click the Mendeley icon up in the top right . From there, you can easily add the resource to your library, or you can put it into a specific collection or group.

When using the Mendeley Web importer, it’s always a good idea to double-check the imported info, as this isn’t always perfect. You can do so by clicking the little pencil icon in the importer window, or by editing the information in the library at a later stage. This is particularly important when you’re using the web importer to add general webpages (i.e., non-academic resources), as there will often be some missing information that needs to be included.

Option 4: Use Mendeley’s search engine

The final option is to use Mendeley’s own search engine . Mendeley Search is similar to Google Scholar in terms of functionality, meaning that you can simply enter the name of the journal article that you want to add and then add it to your library with one click.

You can also use Mendeley Search to find relevant journal articles by entering a keyword . This is particularly useful for finding resources as Mendeley Search often allows you to get access to the full article in PDF format, which is great.

Last but not least, it’s worth noting that if you are currently using  different reference management software and want to move over to Mendeley, that’s completely doable. Just click the “Add new” button, followed by “Import Library”. Mendeley allows you to import Bibtex, Endnote and RIS files, which you should be able to extract from most mainstream reference management packages.

How Manage Your Mendeley Library

Now that we’ve added our reference info to Mendeley, let’s talk about how you can manage your library effectively. Mendeley offers a few different options to help you organise and manage all of your resources.

Mendeley Favourites

You can mark any resource as a favourite by clicking the little star next to the author’s name. By doing this, you’ll be able to shortlist your favourites by selecting the “Favorites” option on the left menu. This functionality is pretty basic, but it can be useful if you want to quickly access a small group of key articles .

Mendeley Tags

The next option, which is a little more sophisticated, is tags . Essentially, you can create as many different tags as you like and then mark up any given resource with the relevant tag (or multiple tags). Once you’ve tagged your resources, you can use the “Filter” option in the top right corner to quickly view all the articles using the respective tag. 

Mendeley Collections

Another bit of functionality to be aware of is collections . As we mentioned earlier, collections are much like folders, which means that you can use collections to group resources into certain themes , methodologies, variables, and so on.

To create a collection, just click the “New Collection” section and enter a name, and then you can just drag and drop the relevant resources into the collection. It’s worth pointing out that all of your resources will always be visible in the “All References” section, so don’t worry about not being able to remember which collection you dropped a resource into.

Mendeley Groups

Mendeley’s Groups functionality allows you to share reference information with your colleagues , which can be super useful for collaborative projects.

To make use of this, start by selecting “New Group”. From there, click the three-dot menu and select “Manage group” to add members to the group. To add references to the group, return to the “All references” section and drag and drop the relevant references into the group. Again, don’t worry about this action moving your references out of your library – any reference that you share with a group will still be accessible in your library .

Notes & Annotations

Last but not least, let’s look at the notebook function. The Mendeley’s Notebook area is a flexible space, where you can make general notes that are not specific to any given resource .

To create a note (or what Mendeleys refers to as a “page”), click the Notebook button, followed by “New Page”. Once you’ve created a note, it will “live” in your Mendeley library, but you can also export your notes as RTF files , which are text files that you can open using any Word processor. This is useful if you want to print your notes at some point or store them somewhere else.

Within the notes section, you’ll also notice an option called “ Annotations ”, which allows you to make notes about specific resources . This can be very useful for jotting down insights or key takeaways for each resource . To use annotations, just select the resource you want to make an annotation for, then click the “annotations” tab and enter your notes.

How To Use Mendeley In Word

Now that we’ve looked at how to add and manage your reference data within Mendeley, it’s time to get to the most important part – using Mendeley within your actual Word document. In this tutorial, I’m using Microsoft’s online version of Word, but the layout and process will be much the same if you’re using the desktop version.

The first thing you’ll need to do is open the Mendeley Cite plugin within Word. You can find that over in the references tab (or sometimes the “add-ins” tab). Once you’ve done that, you’ll see that you have a mini-version of your Mendeley library within Word on the right-side bar.

Next, you’ll need to set the citation style for your document , for example, APA , MLA , etc. To do this, just click on the “Citation settings” tab, and then hit “Change citation style”. You can then select whichever style your university requires. If you don’t see the required style in this list, you can search for more styles by clicking the button titled “Search for another style” down at the bottom.

Once that’s all set, you can return to the “References” section within the Mendeley tab (i.e., the default section) and get to work adding citations to your document.

To add an in-text citation, simply place your cursor where you want the citation added , and then select the relevant resource by ticking it, after which you can hit the “Insert” button. If you want to add multiple references to a citation, simply tick the relevant resources and off you go.

To create a reference list (or what Mendeley refers to as a bibliography), all you need to do is head over to the section of your document where you want to place the list and then click the three-dot menu in the Mendeley plugin, followed by “ Insert bibliography ”. Mendeley then does all the hard work for you.

As you can see, Mendeley generates a complete reference list , based on the resources you’ve cited in your document. This list is perfectly formatted according to the style you specified earlier, which saves you a huge amount of time . As long as you’ve captured the reference information correctly when you added the resource to Mendeley, you can rest assured that this reference list is 100% accurate.

The only thing you may still need to do is set the line spacing , based on your university or department’s requirements. To do this, highlight your entire reference list and select the line spacing icon in Word’s formatting menu.

Have A Question?

In this tutorial, we’ve covered the core functionality you need to know about to get the most out of Mendeley. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

Please keep in mind that while we try to help as much as we can, we cannot provide technical support for Mendeley. If something isn’t working the way it should be, please contact Mendeley support here.

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

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19 Comments

I am impressed with Mendeley’s offering.

Awesome! Thank you! Definitely won’t be manually entering each reference anymore for my MSc thesis!

Pleasure, Gitte!

I want to download literature review Excel

Thank very much Derek . You have greatly helped me. God bless you indeed. Thanks

You’re welcome 🙂

All thanks and appreciation to you

Thank you so much for all this invaluable GradCoach info, all the articles are on point it will make our live much easier.

Thank you Derek. Information you shared was helpful.

Great explanation – thank you! Is it possible to change the referencing style at the end of write-up? If so, how does one do this. Thanks again

RE: your video: Good short & to the point. I’ve ADHD & get bored within litterally seconds if the person presenting hasn’t got on with the point. This is key to ADHD people so will recommend you to others.

RE: my question: Does Medeley allow you split the reference docs into sections for the different areas of research I’m doing eg fungi, soil, bacteria, viruses etc?

Thanks in advance

Thank you! Helped with my bachelor

Hello, could you please tell me how to generate the code for “&” in the field “Citation”. For example: the code in the field “citation” is “CITATION Haw15 \l 1029 ” for “(Hawkins, a další, 2015)”. I need the citation in the form “Hawkins & Byrne 2015”

Thanks Derek for all the coaching. It’s a huge help for the literature review I’m doing. Tried to follow the steps from your video but the literature search function is not showing on my mendeley desktop. Did I miss a step in downloading it? I was able to download the reference manager and it was fine but I am a bit stuck with the mendeley desktop? Is there a separate video that shows the steps how to download the mendeley desktop?

I followed your video, however, what version of Mendeley has a Literature search, I cant find it in the Mendeley I installed.

Good day Derek. I’m a PhD student and have just listened to your videos, which are awesome! Thank you so much. I am also a Mendeley fan. However, I find it limiting in some aspects. Do you have any knowledge about how to use Mendeley with cloud storage and also using a cloud-based “Watch folder”? Thank you in advance.

I just want to say thanks so much. I had this software recommended to me from Uni and once I had downloaded it all I didn’t understand how it worked. After your video I now totally get it and this is going to make life so much easier. So thanks again.

how to put website citation and reference

How I should recover the icons missed from the taskbar, it’s already installed. now Mendeley is not visible

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Mendeley is a reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research and collaborate with others online. Mendeley consists of an online account, a desktop install and a word plugin. The Mendeley Reference Manager allows you to store, organize and share your references and cite those references when you are writing a paper or report. The online and desktop version synchronize automatically to give you access to your library anywhere and anytime.

Register at Mendeley ( direct access ) and download the Reference manager. A web-importer and Microsoft Word plugin will be available in the downloaded program. Mendeley is also available for Mac ( direct access ) and Linux ( direct access ).

After installation, you can consult ITC's Mendeley Manual for instructions on the usage of Mendeley.

• ITC's Mendeley Manual

The University Library offers Mendeley training as part of the optional courses of the PhD bootcamp, and tailor made courses can be arranged upon request.

If you have a group of students or staff who want to get to know Mendeley, please send an email to your faculty's information specialist . We will arrange a tailor-made workshop. 

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Mendeley: Writing your Paper or Manuscript

• Web Importer
• Writing your Paper or Manuscript
• Create a Bibliography
• Groups & Sharing

How to Use the Citation Plugin

• Citation Plugin for Word

How to Add more Styles to your List of Installed Styles

How to add more citation styles to your installed styles

• In Mendeley Desktop use the View pull down menu from the Mendeley toolbar.
• Select on Citation Styles and then click on more styles.
• In the pop-up window you will see your installed styles
• Click on the Get More Styles tab
• Search for the style you want in the search box.
• Select the style and click on download.
• Go back to the Installed tab .  Select the new style and click on Use this style to add it to your installed styles.

Download Mendeley Cite

If download of the Mendeley Reference Manager has not already inserted the tool called Mendeley Cite into your MSWord program, download Mendeley Cite [When in MSWord you should then see a link labeled references in your menu bar/ribbon leading to a tool labeled Mendeley Cite-O-Matic].

Using the Citation Plug-in to Cite your Paper

The video uses Mendeley on a Mac.  The Mendeley Cite plug-in is located under the References tab in Microsoft Word and will be labeled Mendeley Cite-o-Matic.  For more details in using the Word Plug-in please refer to Using the Citation Plug-in

Note: There is a slight difference with MS Word on Mac: The Cite-O-Matic will appear as its own toolbar on a Mac.

Inserting Citations

Once you have your documents in Mendeley, you can cite and reference them within Word and LibreOffice by installing plug-ins.  Once installed, you will have tool bar buttons that will allow you to cite a document, generate a bibliography, or manually edit any entry.

Go to Tools > Install... and select the plugin you wish to add.  (Word must be closed.)

When creating a paper, click on Insert Citation in the toolbar to cite a document from your Mendeley Library.

If you are using Word on Windows, a box will appear allowing you to search for references by author, title or year.

When you find the reference you want to cite, click OK and you're done.  You can cite multiple references by using semicolons to separate them. You can also add page numbers to your reference.

• To add a page number, highlight the reference and a box will appear that allows you to insert a page number (or chapter heading...).
• If you need to edit this reference later on, do not change it in the Word file. Instead, highlight the citation (footnote, endnote, parenthtical documentation) and the Insert Citation button in the Mendeley Cite-O-Matic tab will change to Edit Citation. Click Edit Citation and the editing box will reappear.

If you prefer to find references using Mendeley Desktop, press the "Go to Mendeley" button beneath the search box, which brings up Mendeley Desktop.  Then select the document in Mendeley Desktop, and click Cite in the Mendeley Desktop Toolbar.

Again, you can cite multiple documents.  Just hold the Ctrl key and left click the documents you want to cite. 

You can select your preferred citation style in the drop down menu.  Additional styles may be added to your list of installed styles.  See the box below for instructions.

Generate the bibliography by clicking Insert Bibliography.

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CHM 7010 - Turning Research into a Thesis: Mendeley

• Science Citation Index Expanded
• Source Evaluation/Metrics
• Thesis/Technical Writing

About Mendeley

Mendeley is a free desktop and cloud application that helps you manage your research. Also known as a reference or citation manager, it has built-in tools to help you read and annotate articles. Mendeley allows you to organize PDFs, other documents, and citations into folders and collaborate with other researchers. It backs up your research library and syncs to the web and smart phone or tablet devices. It is also a social network for scholars across the globe with an online research library that you can use to discover research papers.

Setting Up Mendeley

1. Go to mendeley.com .

2. Create a Mendeley Account by clicking on Create Free Account.  Do this by entering your email address. Create your password.  DO NOT use the Sign-in via your Organization . 

3. Download the Mendeley Reference Manager .

4. Once you download the Reference Manager, go to Tools and download Mendeley Cite for Word .

5. Next go to Tools  and download the Mendeley Web Importer .

Notes for Mac Users:

• The new Mendeley Reference Manager software (2020) is not compatible with macOS 10.15 (Catalina). Neither is the Desktop Word Plugin. You will have to use Mendeley Cite.

Mendeley was created in 2008 as a startup and bought by Elsevier in 2013.

Thanks to IUPUI University Library for allowing UO Libraries to adapt their Mendeley Guide under a Creative Commons license.

More Help with Mendeley

• Mendeley - Citation Management Software Wright State University Medical and Human Services Librarian Joanna Anderson compiled this complete guide to Mendeley based on IUPUI University Library's guide under the terms of a Creative Commons license.

Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) License

This guide has a Creative Commons BY-NC License.

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

• Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License Deed

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Scientific Communication Resource

• ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication by editors: Gregory M. Banik, Grace Baysinger, Prashant V. Kamat, Norbert J. Pienta Call Number: online ISBN: 9780841235830 Publication Date: 2020
• ACS Style Quick Guide Examples of references for commonly cited types of sources. Note to the Reader: This is an open access chapter published under an ACS AuthorChoice License, which permits copying and redistribution of the chapter or any adaptations for non-commercial purposes. In all of the examples shown here, the source type is online unless noted otherwise.

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Find & Cite | Research Help | Collections | Services | About

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• Research Guides

Citing Sources

• Getting Started
• Adding Articles to Your Library
• Adding Non-PDF Sources
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Updating Citation Information

Mendeley cite, accessing mendeley cite, selecting a citation style, in-text citations, reference list.

• Additional Resources

Mendeley has an optional add-on, Mendeley Cite , which can be used to generate in-text citations and reference lists in Microsoft Word. Note that you need to be connected to the internet to use this add-on, as Mendeley Cite will be pulling information from your web library.

Before you cite a source using Mendeley Cite, you should verify that its stored citation information is accurate. Mendeley automatically imports citation information for many of the documents that you add to your library. However, sometimes it is missing information or has errors. In rare cases, it will not import any information and you will have to enter everything manually. You should always double check this citation information for accuracy before you use it in your citations.

To view and edit the citation information for a source:

1. Single click on an article title in your library.

2. A panel of information will appear on the right side of the screen. Click on any field to edit the information.

For all sources: Check the capitalization of your article titles because Mendeley does not adjust it automatically. Some citation styles want you to use sentence case (ie: capitalize only the first word and proper nouns) and others use title case (ie: capitalize all words except for things like “and,” “the,” etc.). You should check how your citation style requires you to capitalize your titles (the Cook Library Citation Guides are a great place to look for that information) and adjust them as necessary before proceeding.

The video below demonstrates the process of editing citation information in Mendeley Reference Manager.

You must install the Mendeley Cite add-in in order to create in-text citations and reference list entries in Microsoft Word. If you are on a Towson-issued device, you will need to submit an OTS TechHelp Ticket to request permission first.

To install Mendeley Cite,

Select " Insert " from the top ribbon in Microsoft Word.

Select " Get Add-ins ."

If you are on a personal device: Search for Mendeley Cite in the "Store" section, install it, and select "Add." If you are on a Towson-issued device and already submitted an OTS Ticket: Select "Admin Managed" from the top, find Mendeley Cite, and select the "Add" button.

The video below demonstrates the process of using Mendeley Cite to generate in-text citations and references lists.

To access Mendeley Cite after you have downloaded it:

1.Open a Word document.

2. Click on the "References" tab in the top ribbon.

3. Select the red Mendeley Cite icon at the far right. This will bring up the Mendeley Cite panel that you will use to create your citations.

Mendeley has most popular citation styles built in. To select a citation style:

1. Open the Mendeley Cite panel (References --> Mendeley Cite).

2. Click on the "Citation Style" tab that appears near the top.

3. Your currently selected citation style will be listed at the top in bold. To select a different style, click on the desired style from the list underneath. If your citation style is not listed, click on "Select another style..." at the bottom of the panel. Then, search for your desired style and click on the closest match.

To create an in-text citation:

1. Move your cursor to the point in the document where you want your citation to appear. Mendeley does not adjust your spacing and punctuation for you, so take that into account with your cursor placement.

2. When you are ready to cite, click on the "References" tab in the Mendeley Cite panel on the right.

3. Select the source you want to cite from the list that appears or search for a source using the search bar at the top. You can cite more than one source at the same time by checking the box next to multiple items in the list.

4. Click the "Insert Citation" button at the bottom.

Once you have added some in-text citations, you can create a full reference list for your paper.

To create a reference list:

1. Move your cursor to end of your document (or the place in your document where you want your reference list to appear).

2. Click on "More" at the top right of the Mendeley Cite panel.

3. Select "Insert Bibliography" from the drop down menu.

4. Click on the blue "Continue" button, and your reference list will appear.

This reference list will automatically update as you add or remove in-text citations from your document. You can also edit the text of the references as needed to correct inaccuracies or minor formatting errors.

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Mendeley: build your research library.

• Get Started
• Build Your Research Library
• Organize Your Research
• View and Annotate PDFs
• Create Bibliographies
• Share and Collaborate

Building your Mendeley Library

Below are several ways that you can add citations to Mendeley to build your research library:

Remember that all the citations added to your personal Mendeley Library are also added to the database of citations that Mendeley shares with everyone. If you don't want a citation in your personal Mendeley Library to be added to the crowd-sourced library (e.g., unpublished papers, personal manuscripts), uncheck Share this reference anonymously with Mendeley Web Catalog at the bottom of the document details. 

See also Mendeley's Guide to Adding References and Guide to Importing Content from the Web .

Drag in PDFs

A quick and easy way to get citations into your Mendeley Library is to drag and drop PDF files or folders of PDFs into the Mendeley Reference Manager window. Mendeley will attempt to extract the citation information from the PDFs, and the new citations will show up in under Recently Added .

Note: not all PDFs have information that can be extracted by Mendeley, and sometimes the citation information will be missing, incomplete, or incorrect. You may have to enter citation information manually, search the Mendeley catalog, or enter the DOI, PMID, or ArcXiv ID under Identifiers and use the Lookup (magnifying glass).

Using Add New

You can add your existing PDF files or folders to Mendelely using Add New .

Add entry manually allows you to create a reference from scratch.

You can use Import library to import records from another citation manager after first exporting them in RIS, BibTeX, or Endnote XML format.

Import from Database with Web Importer

After installing the Web Importer  (bookmarklet) in your favorite browser, you can use the web importer button (red Mendeley icon) on your bookmarks toolbar when you are viewing a citation record or list of search results in a supported database (including Web of Science, PubMed, Google Scholar).

The Web Importer will bring in citation information, and where possible, the pdf. Be aware that the Web Importer may not always bring in all citations from your results list and/or may bring in incomplete citation information.

In some citation databases, such as our ProQuest databases, the Mendeley Web Importer does not work well. In that case, look for an option like Export / Save Citation, then save or export the citation in RIS format. Depending on the database, either do Direct Export - Open With - Mendeley. Or, save the RIS file and import it into Mendeley by choosing Add New - File(s) from computer .

Get Citations Using Mendeley Search

You can search across the libraries of other Mendeley users to discover new papers on a topic. To do this, go to Search for articles online from the Tools menu of Mendeley Reference Manager. This opens a search in your browser. You can also access Search while using Mendeley from a browser - look for the Search link by Library in the upper right by your name.

Use Recommendations from Mendeley

Mendeley's 'suggest' features for discovering new papers are not as robust as they used to be. However, you can still have Mendeley send you a weekly list of papers by setting up notifications in your account settings, or you can choose to disable the weekly list if you don't find it useful.

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• URL: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/mendeley

How To Use Mendeley For Reference Management (An Illustrative Guide)

There are many reference management softwares in the market, which make students’ work easier by performing several functions including:

• Creating a library of reading materials
• Inserting in-text citations automatically
• Creating bibliographies or reference lists automatically
• Changing between different referencing styles automatically
• Taking notes digitally on the reading materials, among others.

Mendeley is one of the reference management softwares that are popular among students, both at undergraduate and graduate levels. This post provides a detailed guide on how to use Mendeley using practical illustrations. It covers the following topics:

Installing Mendeley

How to create folders in mendeley, how to add files to your mendeley folders, how to use mendley’s ms word plugin for citations and creating bibliographies, inserting in-text citations, creating bibliographies or reference lists, specifying the referencing style, taking notes and highlighting documents in mendeley, taking notes, highlighting documents, comparing mendeley with zotero.

• Go to www.mendeley.com then click on download.

Mendeley works in three different operating systems namely: Mac, Windows and Linux. Download based on the operating system you use.

*For those on MacOS, please note that Mendeley does not support later versions (from 10.14). If you install in these versions and try to open it, you will get the error message “ Mendeley Desktop can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software. “

• After downloading and installing it, it is important to register for a free account. This enables you to access your account anywhere because your library will be saved to the clouds.

• Next, install two important add-ons: 1) MS Word plugin; and 2) Web importer from Mendeley’s tools tab.

The MS Word plugin integrates Mendeley with Microsoft Word therefore enabling the user to automatically insert in-text citations and create bibliographies.

The Web Importer, on the other hand, enables the user to save a web document directly from the internet to Mendeley.

The best way to organize your library of reading materials is by creating folders in Mendeley and adding papers to their relevant folders.

There are two ways of creating folders in Mendeley:

• By adding folders that already exist in your computer:

To do this, go to the first icon on the far-left with a + sign and click the drop-down menu. Then click on “add folder.”

A dialog box will open showing the folders in your computer and asking you to select the folder to be added to your Mendeley library. Choose the folder you want to add and click OK. The folder will now appear in your library.

• By creating folders manually:

To do this, click on the “create folder” option under the library pane and type in the name of the folder. In this example, a folder named “literature review” was created through this method.

To add files to folders in Mendeley library, you can:

• Drag and drop into the folders
• Use the Web Importer add-in

The Web Importer add-in enables the user to add a document obtained from a website directly into Mendeley without having to save it to the computer first.

The Mendeley’s MS Word plugin enables the user to insert citations and create bibliographies or reference lists automatically into Word documents. This saves students the amount of time and effort that would otherwise be spent doing the tasks manually.

• Open the Word document and go to the References tab. In the References tab, you will see Mendeley with various options including citations and bibliographies, as shown below:

• Click on the “insert citations” tab. A dialogue box will open with a search bar. In the search bar, type the name of the authors or the title of the publication you want to search, then select from the results shown and click OK. Mendeley will insert the citations automatically.

See an example below:

• From the References tab, click on “insert bibliography.”
• Mendeley will automatically insert bibliographies for all the in-text citations in the document.

The in-text citations and reference lists/bibliographies need to follow a specific referencing style that is recommended by the user’s institution. The style may be MLA, APA, Harvard, Chicago etc.

To specify the referencing style, go to the References tab, then click on “style” and choose the recommended style from the drop-down menu, as shown below:

Mendeley will format all in-text citations and bibliographies using the specified referencing style.

A student can also change the referencing style automatically as and when required. For instance, if a student is publishing a journal paper whose referencing style requirement is different from that of the university, he can just go back to the referencing style drop-down menu and select the recommended style. Mendeley will change the style of the in-text citations and bibliography automatically.

Another useful feature of Mendeley is its ability to highlight documents and take notes in documents using the “highlight” and “note” functions of Mendeley found in the Tools menu.

There are two ways of taking notes using Mendeley:

On the right-hand pane of Mendeley, there is an option for “notes” (see below) where you can write your notes as you read a document.

The second option involves making notes in the document itself. To do this, open the document in Mendeley, then click on the “note” tab, and make your notes anywhere in the document where you deem fit.

All the notes you make in the document will be listed below the “general notes” section of the “notes” tab as “private annotations” in the right-hand pane. See illustrations below:

Related post: 9 Note-Taking Tips For PhD Research

In addition to taking notes and making annotations, you can also highlight text in a document.

To highlight a text, open the pdf document in Mendeley, then click on the “highlight” tab, and highlight the text of your choice.

Mendeley is similar to Zotero in many ways but a few differences exist between the two softwares. For instance, while Mendeley cloud facility offers 2GB of storage, Zotero provides 300MB of storage only. Mendeley’s note-taking and highlighting features are also missing in Zotero. Nevertheless both are valuable reference management tools and the choice of one over the other in most cases is a matter of preference.

In conclusion, Mendeley is a free reference management software with cloud storage. It is a powerful and easy-to-use tool for automatically inserting citations and creating bibliographies. It also allows users to annotate and highlight the saved pdf documents. This post provided an illustrative guide on how to install and use Mendeley.

Related posts:

How To Use Zotero For Reference Management (An Illustrative Guide)

How to Use Citavi for Reference Management (A Detailed Guide)

How to Use EndNote for Reference Management (A Comprehensive Guide)

How to Use RefWorks for Reference Management (A Detailed Guide)

Grace Njeri-Otieno

Grace Njeri-Otieno is a Kenyan, a wife, a mom, and currently a PhD student, among many other balls she juggles. She holds a Bachelors' and Masters' degrees in Economics and has more than 7 years' experience with an INGO. She was inspired to start this site so as to share the lessons learned throughout her PhD journey with other PhD students. Her vision for this site is "to become a go-to resource center for PhD students in all their spheres of learning."

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How To Get Organized With Reference Managers for Science—Mendeley

Learn how Mendeley allows you to organize a library containing your favorite articles and generate citations and bibliographies while writing papers.

Published January 5, 2022

I am a results-driven scientist and science communicator interested in the use of protein engineering and integrative structural biology tools in drug discovery. I hope to leverage my experiences in industry and academia to improve global health and to make scientific research as accessible to as many people as possible.

Are you currently thinking about or actually writing your thesis, latest grant proposal, or your next game-changing paper?

If so, you’ll know how overwhelming it can sometimes be to simply start writing.

For me, one of the most daunting aspects of the writing process is keeping up with the latest publications and organizing the relevant papers , mainly because of the sheer wealth of available literature.

Can you relate? If so, you’ve come to the right place.

In this post, we are going to cover Mendeley, one of the most established reference managers among scientists.

What Is Mendeley?

In the first 6 months of my undergraduate degree, I painstakingly referenced all of my assignments manually, until a kind postdoc took pity on me and introduced me to the world of reference managers, specifically to EndNote.

A year or so later, as a student on a budget and on a quest to find free software, I trialed Mendeley. I haven’t looked back.

Founded by three PhD students and named after the biologist Gregor Mendel and chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev, [1] Mendeley is a free reference manager program that can be downloaded at www.mendeley.com .

Like all reference managers, Mendeley allows you to generate and organize a library of key publications, and, importantly, it allows you to seamlessly insert citations as you write.

It also generates a bibliography in the specific style you require. Mendeley has many very useful features in common with other reference managers (e.g., subfolder organization, PDF annotation, and highlighting), but it also has some unique tools—let’s discuss these in more detail.

Cite as You Write

Plugins for microsoft word.

If you use Microsoft Word, Mendeley offers the Cite plugin, which allows you to easily insert citations and bibliographies as you write without having to leave your document.

When you’ve been deciding where to submit a paper, you’ll probably have noticed that many journals have different referencing style guidelines.

Being able to switch styles at the click of a mouse is a huge time and stress saver! Mendeley Cite works with the following: Microsoft Word 2016 and above, Microsoft Online, Microsoft Office 365, and the Microsoft Word app for iPad.

Compatibility with LaTeX

If you use the typesetting software LaTeX , Mendeley has great functionality with BibTeX files. You can have all of your citations in one Mendeley library and each time you update your Mendeley library the corresponding .bibtex files are also updated.

This means that the next time you LaTeX your manuscript or thesis document, Mendeley reaches in and pulls up the latest version of the .bibtex file.

I haven’t used this feature myself, mostly because I’m intimidated by LaTeX , but I’ve heard from others that it is quite impressive.

Build Your Mendeley Library

One of the issues I encountered when I used EndNote was that I often lost track of my references because of the nature of online searches.

You know how it goes: I would start reading one paper from which I would find a host of other interesting papers to look up, then I’d also come across some interesting paper titles or work from academics I had cited before.

That would set me off on a clicking frenzy and I would end up with endless open tabs on my web browser and dozens of downloaded PDFs in the ever-expanding but rarely explored “Interesting Papers” folder.

More often than not, I would end up in a situation where all of those interesting PDFs would languish without a corresponding citation entry in EndNote.

Luckily, Mendeley has a couple of really useful tools to help you overcome this.

Watched Folders

The first of these tools is the watched folders feature. With this feature, you can assign specific “watched folders” and any PDF you download to these folders will automatically be added to your Mendeley library.

This saves time and means that your library is effortlessly maintained and that you won’t lose that one vital paper that may hold the key to the final conclusions in your manuscript!

Web Importer

The second important feature, and definitely my favorite, is the Mendeley Web Importer.

This is a browser extension that detects article identifiers on a web page and automatically retrieves metadata and PDF full texts (where available) for you to add to your library.

This can be done with a simple click of your mouse. The Mendeley Web Importer is supported on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Microsoft Edge.

Now when I succumb to frenzied literature searches, I am safe in the knowledge that as long as I save PDFs in a watched folder or use the Web Importer, when I’m ready to write I can automatically and seamlessly start inserting citations into my manuscript.

Moreover, if there are any issues with imported or saved PDFs, Mendeley will bring this to my attention. I obviously can’t speak for everyone, but these two features feel much more efficient and intuitive to me than having to export a citation every time I download a paper.

As the Mendeley team claim, these features allow us to “spend less time navigating and more time building [our] knowledge base” .

Access your Library Anywhere

Mendeley allows you to access your library anywhere so you can now continue your research wherever and whenever you want.

“How”, you ask? Automatic real-time cloud syncing to Mendeley servers means you can access your library from any computer with internet access using the desktop application or any internet browser.

This allows you to keep your library up to date, and read and write where you want, and, most importantly for me, you don’t have to worry about losing your entire Mendeley library if your computer dies a terrible and unexpected death.

Mendeley offers 2GB of free cloud space but, be warned, this can be easily exhausted if you have an extensive library.

If being able to access your library from any computer is particularly important to you, there are monthly paid options to upgrade to 5GB, 10GB, and unlimited storage space.

Collaborate

In today’s research landscape, collaboration is key. Mendeley now facilitates this by allowing you to share papers with collaborators and colleagues by creating shared folders containing notes and annotations, as well as papers.

The contents of these folders are accessible to group members, allowing everyone to share opinions, as well as interesting articles you may not have found yet.

Keep Your Thoughts in One Place

The Mendeley Reference Manager also allows you to easily highlight and annotate PDFs using Mendeley’s annotation tools.

I find these features really useful because they allow me to capture my thoughts in one place instead of across different Microsoft Word documents or in different physical notebooks.

These features allow you to:

• Create sticky notes on the PDFs you are reading to record your thoughts.
• Highlight key sections of text so you can more easily find them later. You can also use different colors to color code and differentiate your highlights. And let’s face it, everyone loves a highlighter, even if it’s an electronic one.
• Work on multiple PDFs at once and easily switch between them as you annotate using Mendeley’s multi-tab format.
• Pick up where you left off because Mendeley remembers the furthest point you reached in a PDF and opens your PDFs in the same location on all devices.

Mendeley Is Great, but It Isn’t Perfect

While it’s great, Mendeley does have some issues. A major one for biologists is the difficulty in italicizing within a citation.

Microsoft Word users can work around this issue in the Mendeley Reference manager by inserting HTML tags around the text within the citation that needs to be italicized (e.g., <i>Escherichia coli</i>).

The workaround is a bit more complicated for BibTeX/LaTeX users but there are a couple of options .*

The reference manager can be slow to open, maybe because it is checking the “watched folder”, but once open, it usually runs smoothly.

There is one exception, though: if I have my Microsoft Word document in full-screen mode on my MacBook Pro, the Mendeley in-text citation tool won’t open, meaning that I can’t insert a citation.

Although annoying, the solution is to manually stretch the Word page to fit the whole screen. Also, the range of citation styles isn’t great, but you can make your own or adjust a pre-existing style.

None of these issues has stopped me from using Mendeley, but they might be more important to some people.

Another important factor to note is that Mendeley was purchased by the academic publisher Elsevier in 2013. This sale upset some members of the scientific community, with some people suggesting that Mendeley’s buy-out by Elsevier was problematic for Mendeley’s open sharing model.

What do you think? This may or may not be an important issue for you. Whatever your stance, I urge you to find a reference manager that works for you; it really will save you time! You can check out an overview of the main reference managers here .

Mendeley was my first introduction to the world of reference managers and I hope the features we’ve discussed in this post have enlightened you about the wonders of this software.

If you’re keen to start organizing your papers, then you should head over to the  Bitesize Bio Managing the Scientific Literature Hub .

*If you’re wondering, Word users can insert html tags (<i>Species name</i>) within their Mendeley citation, while BibTeX/LaTeX users need to turn off a setting (Tools > Options > BibTeX > turn off “Escape LaTeX special characters”) and then use \textit{Species name} as you would within text.

• Henning V. (2008) How our name evolved from B-movie monster to Mendeley. Mendeley Blog. https://blog.mendeley.com/2008/04/23/how-our-name-evolved-from-b-movie-monster-to-mendeley/ (accessed October 29, 2021).

Originally published April 29, 2013. Reviewed and updated January 2022.

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quite interesting is that all the big publishers are starting to invest/get into the Reference managment “business”.

So – important fact for this: Mendeley was recently bought by Elsevier. Due to that there is also a “Mendelete” movement. 🙂 – quite a good article about that: https://enjoythedisruption.com/post/47527556151/my-thoughts-on-mendeley-elsevier-why-i-left-to-start Or a bit more rough (complaining that elsevier gets the data of scientists and intitutions):

But Elsevier is not the only one: Springer bought mekentos – better known for papers.

Thomas Reuters is behind EndNote, ProQuest behind RefWorks, Readcube already partners with Nature and Wiley& Sons,

So the point in that is not that its bad software – i used mendeley for some time: whom do you want to know about your work? As open access starts to spread you can clearly see by my points above that the big publishers are doing some moves.

So to complete my list (feel free to add): Others hat should be on the list when you search for your favourite reference/literature reader or manager are Utopia Documents (well – its a reader not a manager), Docear, Jabref and Zotero (which is my weapon of choice).

Thanks for this post, Matthias. I was not aware that so many of the other programs were backed by publishers. (I use Jabref, so I’m in the clear.)

I also think this article is oddly-timed to write about Mendeley without mentioning the uproar over the recent buy-out by Elsevier. I think you’ve touched on good points with this comment. As a scientist, open-source is extremely important, not only for ideology, but also full-disclosure of what the program does.

Thanks Matthias – thanks for this — we had this article scheduled for a long time in advance, which is why there was no mention of the buy-out.

You raise a very pertinent point though..thank you. We’ll put together an article on the buy-outs, and what they mean for users, in the near future.

It’s good to be able to keep local copies of PDF:s, but I would never do it for articles which I have full access to online. I only do it for articles which I have scanned paper copies of. It’s more important to also be able to attach other types of files to a reference, e.g a text file or a figure cut out from the article and attached as an image. Today many articles also contain extensive supplementary information in various file formats.

It’s also important where references are imported from. If you import the same reference from different sites e.g. PubMed, the publisher, Google Scholar etc there are usually always some differences, some might miss some information e.g. DOI number or abstract or the format is different, therefore it’s usually best to try and import as many references as possible from the same source, and the most comprehensive source is PubMed.

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Craft a Compelling Thesis: 9 pro tools for research and writing success

The journey from a captivating research topic to a compelling thesis can be long and winding. Between navigating mountains of information, organizing your thoughts, and crafting a well-structured argument, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But fear not, intrepid researcher! This article introduces you to the categories of powerful tools that will streamline your research process, empower your writing, and ultimately help you craft a thesis that shines.

Part 1: Laying the Foundation – Research powerhouses

Your research is the backbone of your thesis. To build a strong foundation, you need access to credible and diverse sources. Here are two essential online tools to kickstart your search:

Google Scholar and JSTOR: Unearthing scholarly gems

These academic search engines are goldmines for researchers. Google Scholar scours the web for scholarly articles, theses, books, and abstracts across a wide range of disciplines. JSTOR delivers a curated collection of high-quality, peer-reviewed journals and primary sources.

Power Up Your Research with Google Scholar and JSTOR:

1. Advanced Search Techniques: Both platforms offer advanced search functions. You can filter by publication date, author, title keywords, or specific journals.

2. Citation Tracking: Both Google Scholar and JSTOR allow you to track citations, helping you identify seminal works and build upon existing research.

3. Saved Searches and Alerts: Set up alerts to receive notifications when new articles relevant to your topic appear. This keeps you at the forefront of your field.

Choosing Between Them

Google Scholar offers a broader search across the web, while JSTOR provides a more focused collection of academically vetted sources. Use both in tandem for a comprehensive research strategy.

Part 2: Organizing the Chaos – From drafts to masterpieces

With research underway, the next hurdle is organizing your findings. Thankfully, digital note-taking apps like Evernote can be your savior.

Evernote: Your digital research vault

Evernote functions as a multi-functional information hub.

Evernote’s Powerhouse Features:

1. Text, Audio, and Image Capture: Capture ideas in various formats, including typed notes, voice recordings, and images of handwritten notes or scanned documents.

2. Organization and Tagging: Organize your notes using notebooks and tags, making it easy to find specific information later.

3. Web Clipper Integration: Save relevant web pages directly into Evernote, including text snippets, images, and links.

4. Collaboration: Share notes and collaborate with your peers on research projects.

Mastering Evernote for Thesis Success:

1. Create Subject-Specific Notebooks: Dedicate notebooks to different aspects of your thesis topic.

2. Maintain a Master Bibliography: Use a dedicated notebook to compile references you encounter during research.

3. Organize Quotes and Excerpts: Tag key quotes and excerpts with relevant keywords for easy retrieval.

4. Record Brainstorming Sessions: Use Evernote’s audio recording feature to capture fleeting ideas for future exploration.

Part 3: Roadmap to Success – Project management magic

With Evernote keeping your research organized, it’s time for project management tools to keep you on track. Trello, a popular visual project management platform, can be your guiding light.

Trello: Your thesis roadmap

Trello uses boards with lists and cards to visually represent your project progress.

Trello’s Advantages for Thesis Writers:

1. Visualizing Your Thesis Journey: Break down your thesis into manageable tasks within lists, and visualize your progress as you move cards across stages.

2. Setting Deadlines and Reminders: Assign deadlines to each task card and receive timely reminders to stay on schedule.

3. Collaboration Made Easy: Share your Trello board with your advisor or fellow researchers for collaborative brainstorming and task management.

Optimizing Trello for Your Thesis:

1. Create Lists for Different Stages: Set up lists like “Research,” “Outline,” “Writing,” “Revision,” and “Final Draft.”

2. Break Down Research Objectives: Within the “Research” list, create cards for specific sources you need to explore.

3. Track Writing Progress: Divide your writing into chapters or sections and create cards for each one, tracking progress as you write drafts.

4. Add Resources and Deadlines: Attach relevant research articles or outline notes to each card and set realistic deadlines to stay focused.

Part 4: Unveiling the Data – Statistical power

If your research involves quantitative data analysis, statistics software like SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) becomes your secret weapon.

SPSS: Unveiling insights from data

SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) is a robust tool for quantitative data analysis, allowing you to explore relationships between variables, test hypotheses, and create data visualizations.

Unlocking the Power of SPSS:

1. Data Input and Cleaning: Enter your data into SPSS and utilize its cleaning tools to identify and address inconsistencies or missing values.

2. Statistical Analysis: Conduct various statistical tests depending on your research question. Explore correlations, conduct t-tests or ANOVAs, and analyze complex relationships.

3. Data Visualization: Create informative charts and graphs to visually represent your findings, making them easier to understand for yourself and your audience.

Part 5: Crafting Your Thesis – Writing and polishing

With research organized, the project managed, and data analyzed, it’s time to translate your knowledge into a compelling thesis. Here, two writing powerhouses come into play:

Scrivener and MS Word: From drafts to polished prose

This software is designed specifically for writers, offering unique features to help you structure and organize your thesis.

Scrivener’s Strengths:

1. Corkboard Feature: Visually arrange your research notes, chapter outlines, anddrafts on a digital corkboard for easy reorganization.

2. Focus Mode: Minimize distractions by hiding everything on the screen except the current section you’re working on.

3. Goal Setting and Tracking: Set daily writing goals and track your progress to maintain momentum.

This ubiquitous word processor offers essential writing and editing tools.

Ms word’s advantages:.

1. Collaboration Tools : Share your thesis document with your advisor or peers for real-time feedback and collaborative editing.

2. Formatting and Styles: Utilize built-in styles and formatting options to ensure consistent formatting throughout your thesis.

3. Reference Management Tools: Integrate reference management software like Mendeley (mentioned later) for seamless in-text citations and bibliography creation.

Optimizing Your Writing Process:

1. Choose Your Weapon: Use Scrivener for initial brainstorming and organization, then switch to MS Word for fine-tuning formatting and referencing.

2. Utilize Templates: Both programs offer thesis templates to jumpstart your formatting process.

3. Embrace Collaboration: Share your drafts with others for constructive feedback and fresh perspectives.

Part 6: Extracting Text from Images – A hidden gem

Sometimes, your research may involve extracting text from images, such as scanned documents or screenshots. This is where Cardscanner.co comes in handy.

Cardscanner.co: Turning images into text

Cardscanner.co is an online OCR based Image to text converter which allows you to upload images, scanned documents, hand written notes and convert the text within them into editable digital format.

Cardscanner’s Benefits:

1. Effortless Text Extraction: Save time by quickly extracting text from images instead of manual retyping.

2. Supports Various Formats: Handle documents, scanned and printed images, hand written notes and more.

3. Batch Conversion: Allows you to process multiple files simultaneously and perform the text extracting conversion with complete accuracy.

4. Directly Export in Spreadsheet: Cardscanner also allows you to directly extract text from images containing any tabular data and export them directly into spreadsheets (XLSX, XLS, CSV).

5. Text Translation: With the translation feature, even if the image contains text in another language, the tool allows you to extract and translate the text without the need to translate it separately after extraction.

Part 7: Visual Storytelling – Infographics for impact

Visuals can significantly enhance your thesis by making complex information more understandable and engaging. Here, two online infographic creation tools offer a helping hand:

Canva and Venngage: Simplifying visual communication

Canva and Venngage both are user-friendly platforms that provide a wide range of templates, icons, and design elements to create stunning infographics.

Canva and Venngage’s Advantages:

1. Drag-and-Drop Functionality: Easily design infographics without needing graphic design expertise.

2. Pre-designed Templates: Choose from a vast library of templates tailored to various topics and styles.

3. Collaboration Features: Work with your peers or advisor to create infographics collaboratively.

Tips for Creating Effective Infographics for Your Thesis:

1. Focus on Clarity: Keep your infographic focused on a single key message and avoid information overload.

2. Choose Data Wisely: Select the most impactful data points from your research to visually represent in your infographic.

3. Maintain Brand Consistency: Ensure your infographic aligns with the overall style and tone of your thesis.

Part 8: Citation Management Made Easy – Reference powerhouse

Proper citation management is crucial for academic writing. Mendeley is a software specifically designed to streamline this process.

Mendeley: Your citation management ally

Mendeley helps you organize your research references, automatically generate in-text citations and bibliographies in various citation styles, and seamlessly integrate with writing software like MS Word.

Mendeley’s Benefits:

1. Reference Organization: Import references from various sources, including online databases and research papers.

2. Automatic Citation Generation: Generate in-text citations and bibliographies in the required format with a few clicks.

3. PDF Annotation and Highlighting: Annotate and highlight key passages within your research PDFs directly.

Part 9: Polishing Your Prose – Grammar and plagiarism checkers

Even the most meticulous researcher can benefit from a final polish. Here, two tools can empower you to deliver a grammatically sound and plagiarism-free thesis:

Trinka AI and Enago Plagiarism Checker : Ensuring Accuracy and Originality

Trinka AI : This online grammar checker utilizes AI technology to identify and correct grammatical errors, typos, and sentence structure issues.

Trinka AI’s Benefits:

1. Advanced Error Detection: Identifies a wider range of errors beyond basic grammar mistakes.

2. Contextual Analysis: Provides suggestions based on the context of your writing, ensuring appropriate phrasing.

3. Free Basic Plan: Offers a free plan with limited checks, with paid options for extended features.

Enago Plagiarism Checker : This online tool scans your thesis against a vast database of academic sources to identify unintentional plagiarism.

Enago Plagiarism Checker’s Advantages:

1. Peace of Mind: Ensures your work is original and avoids plagiarism accusations.

2. Detailed Report: Provides a report highlighting potential plagiarism instances with suggestions for correction.

3. Free Basic Version: Offers a free basic version with limited checks, with paid options for more comprehensive reports.

Final Words: A thesis triumph awaits!

With this arsenal of powerful tools at your disposal, you are well-equipped to navigate the research and writing journey with confidence. Remember, research and writing are iterative processes. Utilize these tools to organize your information, analyze data, craft compelling arguments, and present your findings in a clear and concise manner.

The path to a successful thesis may have its challenges, but with dedication and these tools as your allies, you can transform your research into a compelling and impactful document. Best of luck on your thesis journey!

Disclaimer: The opinions/views expressed in this article exclusively represent the individual perspectives of the author. While we affirm the value of diverse viewpoints and advocate for the freedom of individual expression, we do not endorse derogatory or offensive comments against any caste, creed, race, or similar distinctions. For any concerns or further information, we invite you to contact us at [email protected].

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Reference Examples

More than 100 reference examples and their corresponding in-text citations are presented in the seventh edition Publication Manual . Examples of the most common works that writers cite are provided on this page; additional examples are available in the Publication Manual .

To find the reference example you need, first select a category (e.g., periodicals) and then choose the appropriate type of work (e.g., journal article ) and follow the relevant example.

When selecting a category, use the webpages and websites category only when a work does not fit better within another category. For example, a report from a government website would use the reports category, whereas a page on a government website that is not a report or other work would use the webpages and websites category.

Also note that print and electronic references are largely the same. For example, to cite both print books and ebooks, use the books and reference works category and then choose the appropriate type of work (i.e., book ) and follow the relevant example (e.g., whole authored book ).

Examples on these pages illustrate the details of reference formats. We make every attempt to show examples that are in keeping with APA Style’s guiding principles of inclusivity and bias-free language. These examples are presented out of context only to demonstrate formatting issues (e.g., which elements to italicize, where punctuation is needed, placement of parentheses). References, including these examples, are not inherently endorsements for the ideas or content of the works themselves. An author may cite a work to support a statement or an idea, to critique that work, or for many other reasons. For more examples, see our sample papers .

Reference examples are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Chapter 10 and the Concise Guide Chapter 10

Related handouts

• Common Reference Examples Guide (PDF, 147KB)
• Reference Quick Guide (PDF, 225KB)

Textual Works

Textual works are covered in Sections 10.1–10.8 of the Publication Manual . The most common categories and examples are presented here. For the reviews of other works category, see Section 10.7.

• Journal Article References
• Magazine Article References
• Newspaper Article References
• Blog Post and Blog Comment References
• UpToDate Article References
• Book/Ebook References
• Diagnostic Manual References
• Children’s Book or Other Illustrated Book References
• Classroom Course Pack Material References
• Religious Work References
• Chapter in an Edited Book/Ebook References
• Dictionary Entry References
• Wikipedia Entry References
• Report by a Government Agency References
• Report with Individual Authors References
• Brochure References
• Ethics Code References
• Fact Sheet References
• ISO Standard References
• Press Release References
• White Paper References
• Conference Presentation References
• Conference Proceeding References
• Published Dissertation or Thesis References
• Unpublished Dissertation or Thesis References
• ERIC Database References
• Preprint Article References

Data and Assessments

Data sets are covered in Section 10.9 of the Publication Manual . For the software and tests categories, see Sections 10.10 and 10.11.

• Data Set References
• Toolbox References

Audiovisual Media

Audiovisual media are covered in Sections 10.12–10.14 of the Publication Manual . The most common examples are presented together here. In the manual, these examples and more are separated into categories for audiovisual, audio, and visual media.

• Artwork References
• Clip Art or Stock Image References
• Film and Television References
• Musical Score References
• Online Course or MOOC References
• Podcast References
• PowerPoint Slide or Lecture Note References
• Radio Broadcast References
• TED Talk References
• Transcript of an Audiovisual Work References
• YouTube Video References

Online Media

Online media are covered in Sections 10.15 and 10.16 of the Publication Manual . Please note that blog posts are part of the periodicals category.

• Facebook References
• Instagram References
• LinkedIn References
• Online Forum (e.g., Reddit) References
• TikTok References
• X References
• Webpage on a Website References
• Clinical Practice References
• Open Educational Resource References
• Whole Website References

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