Thank you to everyone for your Endnote/referencing software advice.
Special thanks to Richard for his very authoritative review - I'm sure this would make an excellent post on the psypag forum!
Best wishes,
Chris
Christopher J. Rossiter
PhD Researcher & PsyPAG Representative (BPS Wessex Branch)
Department of Psychology & School of Management
03 AD 00 University of Surrey
Guildford. GU2 7XH
________________________________________
From: Richard Morrisroe [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 08 November 2011 13:47
To: Rossiter CJ Mr (PG/R - Psychology)
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Endnote
Chris,
I have used many reference managers, and hopefully this short email will
prove useful.
Endnote: good web search functionality, integration with Word and Open
Office, comprehensive styles. Good functionality for lists and groups.
Bad, many of the styles don't work, and some really strange bugs with
cite while you write (references disappearing, reappearing in weird
places). Costs money.
Mendeley: free, rather new - good in that you can back up your
references (and PDF's) on the internet, interesting social features, can
get reference names from folders full of PDF's (of which I have many).
Bad - the name finding part for the PDF's is pretty buggy, and there is
no web search option (they say its coming soon though). free.
Zotero - excellent add-on for Firefox, does not integrate well with
EndNote. No web search, but you can just click and have a web article
added to your library. free.
JabRef (what I currently use) - good: simple, runs on Linux and Windows,
some web search (not for PsycInfo though). Good search features, can
export to BibTeX (essential for me, see below). Bad: no groups, web
search not comprehensive. free as in freedom, and free as in beer.
PyBibliographer: good: free, open source, web search functionality,
support for groups. Bad: does not export BibTeX (which is why I don't
use it anymore).
Choosing a reference manager (and indeed any other program) is a tough
choice, as it gets harder and harder to swtich after you commit to one.
Some things you may want to keep in mind:
1) What will you use it for? Is it just for lists of papers you have
read/will read, or do you want to store PDF's and notes there too.
2) How much does it cost? Not so important when you have an academic
licence, but if you work outside academia later on and need access to
your references then this could be a very big deal.
3) How will you work with it? Do you use Word/Office or LaTeX? Some
programs (JabRef) can plug into both, and it is really, really useful to
be able to search for and insert references as you write something.
4) How long will it be supported? Commercial products have a nasty habit
of being very difficult to read when the company folds or releases a new
version, so you may wish to ensure that the files are common enough that
they can be read by many different kinds of programs (i.e. text files).
Personally, I use JabRef and LaTeX as I value being able to ignore
formatting until the end of the writing process, they both use plain
text files which means that I will never be unable to open them in the
future, and they are both free software so that I can improve them and
tailor them to my needs, and also ensuring that I can use them even if I
don't work in academia.
I hope this proves useful, if you need more information please let me
know.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Morrisroe.
On Tue, 2011-11-08 at 13:20 +0000, Chris Rossiter wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I was wondering if many people use Endnote and whether it's a nifty tool to cut down on dull references, or perhaps a bit too much of a faff?
>
> Would be great hear any experiences as I don't know much about the software.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Chris
>
>
>
>
> Christopher J. Rossiter
> PhD Researcher & PsyPAG Representative (BPS Wessex Branch)
> Department of Psychology & School of Management
> 03 AD 00 University of Surrey
> Guildford. GU2 7XH
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