Automated Citation Management: A Valuable Research Tool

I wish I could recover the hours I lost early in my doctoral journey managing sources and citations. I spent hours organizing PDFs into subfolders by topic, fixing and re-fixing formatting errors in bibliographies, reordering bibliographies, and responding to editor feedback because I failed to add or remove a source when adding or deleting a paragraph. I deluded myself further, thinking I’d catch situations where I had deleted my last reference to a source or needed to modify the year in a citation if I used two or more sources from the same author and year. In my early writing days, I fooled myself, “I’m only using this source for this assignment” or “I’ll remember to remove the entry from the bibliography if I delete this paragraph.” Manual citation management distracted me from reading, writing, synthesizing, and collecting data. Citation management is a solved issue; there is no reason to interact with any citation or bibliographic entry more than once.

After my third semester at Baylor, I started using Zotero, a computer program that manages sources and citations. I learned how to use it inside and out. Now, if an editor wants a citation format fixed, I fix it in Zotero, and it will be correct every time I use it. When I search for articles and find one I want to keep, I use the Zotero browser plug-in to load it into Zotero’s database and attach the article. I create folders and subfolders in Zotero to organize articles, but it is easier to use its built-in search capability to find what I need. When I insert a citation in a paper, I use the integration with Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer to manage the citation and automatically create the bibliography. With one click, I can even change the paper’s citation form (APA, MLA…).

Zotero simplifies a critical but often distracting step in my writing. I can insert and remove citations as I work without concern about the impact on the citation format or bibliography.

Here is one example of a citation manager’s awareness of writing context. Early in adopting Zotero, I added a citation and saw another one change to include a letter ‘a’ after the year. At first, I thought something had gone wrong, but I realized Zotero caught that this citation was for an article published by the same author and in the same year as an earlier one I had used. All those little nits of citation formatting (I was using APA) can become time sinks, such as going back and updating citations because of a new one, but this tool can remove that distraction from your workflow.

If you’re not already using citation management software, I strongly encourage you to start. There are several excellent programs available (I’ll provide a list in the comments). Choose one and start using it regularly. Even for separate assignments, it will save you a significant amount of time, especially if an article you use in one assignment ends up being used in a future paper. With consistent use, a citation manager will seamlessly integrate into your workflow, and you’ll soon realize that you’re no longer wasting time revisiting citation edits or reorganizing bibliographies.

You must manage all source information in the tool to get significant value from a citation manager. When a citation or bibliographic entry is inaccurate, the fundamental rule is to fix the issue in the citation manager, never directly in the document. The mantra “Don’t repeat yourself” is a good one here. Use the tool to avoid repeating the work of fixing any citation issue.

I’m eager to hear your thoughts on source and citation management. The comments section is open for your insights. If you’ve had experiences, positive or negative, with citation management software, I’d love to hear about them. If there’s a particular feature of these tools that you find particularly useful and time-saving, please share it with us!

I wish you happy (and efficient) writing!