Skip to Main Content

Citation Management : Home

What are citation managers?

EndNote logo      Zotero logo      Mendeley logo


Citation managers such as EndNote Basic (aka EndNote Online), EndNote 20, Zotero, and Mendeley are tools for managing your citations. Among other things, citation managers can help you to:

  • Collect and organize your citations
  • Format bibliographies and in-text citations for your papers
  • Share your citations with others

This guide includes pages with information on how to install and use EndNote Basic, EndNote 20, Zotero, and Mendeley.

How do I choose a citation manager?

The "best" citation manager will depend on the functions you're looking for in a citation manager.

Each citation manager shares some of the same, basic functions, including, among other things, the ability to:

  • Import references
  • Create bibliographies
  • Attach PDFs to citations
  • Share citations
  • Install and use Word plugins

However, there are functions that only some citation managers have. The UW Libraries' Comparison Chart provides a comprehensive comparison of the available functions in EndNote Basic, EndNote 20, Zotero, and Mendeley.


Exclamation mark image Important Note: If you are co-writing a paper as a team (i.e., more than one person will be adding citations to a single document), it is preferable that all team members use the same citation manager for the project.

Attend the Introduction to EndNote 21 Workshop!

EndNote logoAttend the (remote) Introduction to EndNote 21 Workshop on October 25th!

EndNote 21 (also known as EndNote Desktop) is a subscription-based citation manager that allows you to save, organize, and format citations for your research. This workshop will introduce some key EndNote 21 functions such as: creating a new library; customizing EndNote 21 for UW Madison; importing citations; organizing, managing, and sharing citations; creating a bibliography; and using the Microsoft Word plug-in while writing papers.

For additional information, please click this registration link.

Additional Resources