I'm only a Masters student, but hoping to start a PhD this year. We were told about endnote in a libabry induction session at the beginning of term but I don't think anyone is actually using it. I do have a rapidly expanding collection of research papers and journal articles that I use across modules, and I have kept some from my UG studies that I think are still useful.

I don't want to come across as totally ignorant but what does Endnote actually do? Does it help you to manage and remember what you have or is it just for referencing? Also did anyone use it at Masters level? Any Endnote advice would be appreciated, thanks, Nx

Hi Natassia,

I use Refworks (similar program) and my advice would be to USE IT!! It has been invaluable to my work.  Basically Refworks stores your references and when you write a reference in a document you link it to the Refworks database you have created. When you have finished writing and need to compile a reference list it does it for you! 

I currently have a database of well over 500 references and there is no way I could manage those manually. You can organise them according to subject and you can add your own notes. 

When I come to the end of my thesis I will click a couple of buttons and my entire reference list will be collated for me. I have friends who have spent weeks and weeks compiling their references at the end of their PhDs and mine will be compiled within a few clicks

As I said I use refworks, but I think the process is similar and I would recommend you utilise EndNote - It will save you soooo much time!  It is just a question of getting into the habit of using it and putting your references into the database.

I would recommend all PhD and Master students use it - it just saves so much time. I have friends who didn't and they really regret it now

Thanks for the reply - I'm definitely going to start using Endnote - I can get a cheaper version somehow through my university library so will look into it. It'll take ages for me to put the papers I already have onto it though! I think the only reason I'm hesitating is that I haven't sorted out a PhD yet and I know its primarily for PhD students, but then I am doing a theoretical MSc dissertation so will have loads of references to sort out then.

I didn't use, or need, EndNote at Masters level. However if you are planning to do a PhD in a similar area, and are already reading relevant journal papers and books, it might be worth you starting to enter their details now, because you will benefit from them in the PhD.

Even in my PhD (and I'll be submitting next month) I haven't used EndNote to generate my bibliography automatically. My department uses an unusual reference style, plus I'm a history student, so have lots of rather odd footnotes and other references. But it has been a wonderful tool for remembering and managing journal papers and books that I would otherwise have forgotten I'd read.

It's definitely worth doing - once you get used to the input page it doesn't really take long to put all the references in
i spent a couple of days just putting all my references in once I'd been on a training course for Refworks and it was definite time well spent.  As I said I have friends who have spent weeks doing their references at the end of their PhD (plus there were panics over a couple of references they couldn't find!) and so comparatively it was time well spent on my part.
It's worth forming a habit of putting them in regularly as well - I do it every time I read an article now
Plus it's useful for additional papers, etc.

I use RefWorks too and it's invaluable. The thing I like about it is that you can put references into multiple folders, so I've started using the folder system as a way of sorting the references by various keywords - makes it so much quicker when I'm looking for a reference or looking for somewhere to start when thinking about a topic area I haven't properly researched yet. I didn't use a system like this for my Masters, and I coped fine then, but it would have been very useful to have already started my own database when I was just starting the PhD. Highly recomended!

When I did my Bachelor I was introduced to EndNote and got as well the program from the institute. Nonetheless, my supervisor at that time told me that he wouldnt recommend to use it.... A PhD Student of him at the problem that more or less making the final version of the PhD thesis, Endnote mixed up something quite badly and it stayed wrong in the final version :( Thus, he told me that he simply has a word document where he has all the references stored and if he needs a reference he is simply copying it from there....




Is anybody of you familiar with both, Endnote and RefWorks, and could give the advantages and disadvantages of the two programs (in case that I ever decide to go for one of those)?
I remember that when I made a try with Endnote quite some of my references I couldnt find via Endnote and had to type them in manually :(

I’m just starting my PhD, and I hope to use something similar. It costs money to use Endnote on one’s home laptop. I’ve come across a free reference management application add-on to Mozilla Foxfire, called Zotero. Does anyone know about and use this? Does anyone have (from experience or reviews) which, out of the various reference management programmes, are the most versatile and reliable?

I have been using Zotero and I like it a lot. I've never used Endnote, so can't compare them directly, but I do find Zotero easy to use, and very practical.

As far as my work is concerned, I use Zotero to keep track of my online articles and texts (e.g. from JStor), as it saves all the citation/footnote information, plus a PDF link for the article itself. There's also an option to write up your notes and save them on Zotero, and to 'tag' articles by theme or subject. Apparently you can also make it automate your footnoting in Word, bu I haven't got that far yet!

Sorry to wax so lyrical, but I really do find this a useful piece of software. You need Firefox though. I didn't use it during my Masters, but now I feel the need to keep track of all the disparate and numerous papers I'm juggling for my PhD!

I've so far (in 2 masters) avoided using electronic reference management systems but recorded everything in my MSc as I went along (190 sources) then I manually edited it using for what actually made it to the final cut.  Have just embarked on PhD and at the moment my dining room is full of boxes of papers and piles of books (a system which looks disorganised but which served me well through my MSc)which I need to start to organise. Word 7 has a reference management facility which I have started to us but I don't know how it compares with specialist software - anyone any experience? Should I go for endnote (which my uni uses), stick with word or try something else?