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The current academic world demands exact management of citations, which is an important part of scholarly writing. For students at the undergraduate level, citation management is a significant issue that often seems to threaten the very integriity of the path taken toward a degree. This is because students are not only required to produce a certain amount of written work across different disciplines but also to submit that work with a certain level of integrity—meaning there can't be any copied content passed off as original work. And in the last ten years (by my count), a number of very good digital tools have appeared that can help with the often tedious, sometimes mind-numbing task of producing a certain number of correctly-formatted citations. These citation-management tools have, for the most part, evolved into really good automated digital assistants that can save a student quite a bit of time.

Popular Citation Management Tools

Mendeley

Academic circles have hailed Mendeley as one of the best tools for managing citations. It offers an interface that is both sophisticated and quite user-friendly—whether you are a novice or a researcher with more experience under your belt. Mendeley's platform runs best on a desktop computer (though it also has a Web version), and it integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Word on that kind of device. You can type a "quick key" command and have Mendeley insert a citation into your document at that point. Mendeley cross-syncs well, too. You can access the library holding your references from any device you choose and work in any part of the world.

PaperGen

Citation management has become more important than ever, especially in this age of digital messiness. With PaperGen, the work of managing citations can be reduced to nearly nothing on your part. You still get to be the author, but the thoroughly digital PaperGen will serve as your helpful ghostwriter and will ensure your paper is riddled with citations that are both accurate and consistent. If you fancy yourself as a credible entity and uphold the standards of academic integrity, PaperGen is a service you can trust that will help you manage your citations with ease and grace.

Zotero

One of the powerful open-source tools that's been drawing a lot of attention from academics and students is Zotero. It's popular for a reason, and that reason is its efficiency in not just gathering but also managing citations. The nice thing about Zotero is that it can gather citations from just about anywhere, whether you're on a library database, a publisher's website, or even a regular web page. Once Zotero assembles your citations, it can also help you format your "Works Cited" page in just about any citation style you need.

EndNote

The best citation management tool around is undoubtedly EndNote. It can handle a massive reference library and can work on any research project that goes above and beyond the undergraduate level. EndNote blows almost all of the competition out of the water, rendering them obsolete or useless. The database and reference organization features alone make it worth the download. And it integrally works with Microsoft Word. So you can have your research and all of its corresponding citations formatted to whatever style you desire with the click of Start.

Features Comparison

When academic users assess citation management tools, several key features set the contenders apart. Accessibility happens to be a significant one. The tools that serve scholars best provide not only seamless integration but also a level of synergy across multiple operating systems (Windows, Mac, and various alternatives) and devices(Scribbr) (desktop, laptop, and mobile). Our researchers span the globe and work in cyberspace; thus, we demand a tool that travels with us. The next significant variable among the tools is pricing. Some tools are free (at least to start with) and some are not. Most sit somewhere between those two extremes and offer a free trial upon which a user may base a decision to upgrade. Whether the decision is made collectively by an institution or individually, pricing heavily influences tool selection. Once selected, a user naturally hopes for a high return on investment (ROI).

Making the Right Choice

Choosing the best citation management tool is a vital choice that can heavily influence your research and academic career. Several important factors should be evaluated when you are deciding on a citation tool. The first and foremost is the longevity and reliability of the software provider. If you have to change citation tools in the middle of a project or your academic career, it can be disruptive to your work and workflow. We, therefore, recommend large and established companies as the best bet for providing citation tools that will be supported for a long time.

Also think about your budget. Some tools have free versions, but they are limited in what they can do. The ones that do offer free versions tend to be compatible with the systems of most academic institutions. You should be using a citation style that is at least somewhat compatible with their outputs. The tool should also be pretty easy to use with whatever kind of word processing software you like. Finally, just because a tool is very popular (or very expensive) doesn't mean it will serve your specific needs better than another tool that is less popular or less expensive.

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