Citing Sources

Learn about frequently-used citation styles and citation tools.

Tools for Managing Citations

There are many different tools available to help you

  • 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.

Because Johns Hopkins has a site license for RefWorks, your access to this tool is free and only requires your JHED ID and password. For help using RefWorks, ask your librarian or a note to refworks@jhmi.edu with your questions.

The guides 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, but we provide robust support for RefWorks because JHU has an institutional subscription for that product.

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

View the citation manager comparison chart at Welch Library to evaluate the features, flexibility, and accessibility of each option. Depending on your goals, one of these tools may be a better fit for your needs.

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