Skip to Main Content

The Sheridan Libraries

Citing Sources

Learn about frequently-used citation styles and citation tools.

Tools for Managing Citations

There are many different tools available to help you:
  • import citations
  • store and organize your PDFs
  • insert citations into documents
  • share your citations and papers with others
  • collaborate with others

These products change constantly, so keeping up can be difficult. Try the Comparison of Reference Management Software entry in Wikipedia for your general questions. Also, look at the citation manager comparison chart at Welch Library to evaluate the features, flexibility, and accessibility of each option.

Johns Hopkins has a site license for RefWorks and therefore your access is free and only requires your JHED ID and password. For help using RefWorks, look at our guide, send a anote to asklib@jhu.edu, ask your librarian, or send a note to refworks@jhmi.edu with your questions.

The pages below offer help to other citation management programs and you may wish to use one of them. We only offer very limited help with most of those products.

(JHU does not have any institutional relationship with ReadCube as of March 2023.)

RefWorks, EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero each come with their own set of strengths and weaknesses, but these four tools offer the same basic features, such as:

  • Export a batch of references from a database in the tool
  • Organize these references in folders 
  • Share your citations with research groups
  • Create a bibliography of your citations in a variety of styles
  • Add a Microsoft Word plug-in that lets you cite while you write your document