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EndNote or Zotero for the National Capital Region

Ever wonder how to manage all of those citations found while doing literature searches and working on your papers?  Dave Beagle will demonstrate two of the tools available for faculty, students, and staff in the National Capital Region.

EndNote is a licensed software package from Thomson Reuters that is available at no charge to Virginia Tech faculty, staff, and students.  EndNote is defined in its promotional materials as an online search tool, a reference and full text organizer with a collaborative Web tool, and a bibliography maker using Cite While You Write™ formatting.  EndNote has a web-based product called EndNote Web that can be used in place of the software product or as a supplement to it.

Zotero is defined in its promotional materials as a “free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources.  Zotero is an extension for the Firefox web-browser.  It runs in its own pane within Firefox, separately from web pages.”  There is a standalone version of Zotero that does not require Firefox to run but is in an alpha release only, so will not be included in these FDI sessions.

The purpose of these sessions is to provide a quick, hands-on introduction in using the basic elements of EndNote and Zotero so that you can decide if either is suitable for your research needs.  Activities will include learning how to:

  • Create a library.
  • Add records to a library manually.
  • Export records from web pages and online databases (e.g., Google Scholar, EBSCOhost, Web of Science, JSTOR, Addison) into a library.
  • Add PDF articles to records in a library.
  • Create bibliographies and in-text citations from records in a library.  Examples will be taken from three widely used bibliographic styles:  APA 6th, Chicago 16th, and MLA (Handbook & Style Manual).

The NVC Resource Center is located at 7054 Haycock Road, Falls Church, Virginia, 22043, near the West Falls Church/VT/UVA Metro station.

Visitors can use metered parking at the Center or the Metro parking lot across the street.