2. The reference management software -also called citation management software, citation manager or personal bibliographic management software- are programs that allow users –researchers, scholars, authors- to save, work on and use bibliographics citations. The aim of these reference management programs is to save search results and publications with a view to using citations (references) to generate bibliographies. Indeed, publishers or journals often have different citation formats which is time-consuming activity when writing. These citations management systems help manage bibliographic references and include cited sources easily. In addition, exporting the document to the format needed is also made easier. On top of that, we understand the importance of these software as the scientific literature keeps growing faster. The picture from PhD Comics should convince you that writing and managing references is one big and hard task!PhD Comics

4. There are already a lot of reference management software available on the market. In fact, there are so many citation managers that one can get lost easily (a look at the comparison of reference management softwares on wikipedia will convince you). Some of them are better known and benefit from good customers’ feedback and reviews. However not all of us know them so we have established this list for you to choose. Interestingly, most of them are free and web-based. Therefore they are accessible from anywhere through private account and remain free.comparison of reference management softwares on wikipedia We will present the main reference management softwares you should know and then show the results of the poll launched on twitter: CiteULike Connotea Endnote / Endnote Web Refworks Mendeley Zotero Papers

5. The ability for researchers to easily mark and download large sets of citations from our bibliographic literature databases has created a need for individual researchers to organize their citation collections over time. Downloading, storing, searching, and retrieval of data sets is most logically performed using software applications known as personal bibliographic database tools. These tools were originally developed from other applications, such as database spreadsheet programs and word processors, but have recently become more sophisticated and tailored for bibliographic purposes. Citation format-based workforms (e.g., journal article, book, conference proceeding) with a variety of defined fields (e.g., author, article title, abstract); Boolean and field searching capabilities; The capability of importing citations from a literature database to the bibliographic management program; Cite while you write add-in features with popular word processing programs;

6. The ability to create bibliographies in a variety of citation styles from within popular word processing programs. Citation format-based workforms (e.g., journal article, book, conference proceeding) with a variety of defined fields (e.g., author, article title, abstract); Boolean and field searching capabilities; The capability of importing citations from a literature database to the bibliographic management program; Cite while you write add-in features with popular word processing programs; The ability to create bibliographies in a variety of citation styles from within popular word processing programs.

7. Choosing a bibliographic product is mostly a matter of personal choice. What one person finds an indispensable feature, another will see as a limitation. Choosing the correct product is crucial, given that you will be using it frequently in your research and writing, whilst also using it to store important references and share these with other researchers, writers and colleagues.