Reference management software is software for academics and authors to use to record and use bibliographic citations. This type of software typically uses a database to store the bibliographic references, together with a system for filtering the list in a format needed desirable to scholarly journals and publishers.
This category of software is one of the most useful digital tools for a researcher today. It enables users to import references from sources, manage and edit the references, export the references, format the bibliography, and in accordance with international standards. Researchers and academics appreciate the essential functions offered by reference management tools, minimizing the tedious task of collecting, organizing and citing their sources.
Writing an academic paper is often unnerving, and unsettling. Writing a coherent paper also needs a lot of organizing and planning. To simplify the complexity of the task, students and researchers can use software to manage the bibliographic details of information and the documents they find during their degree or research.
There are a number of different types of software packages that you can use to manage your bibliography. Our strongest recommendation goes to Zotero, an innovative personal research assistant.
All of our medal winners are, of course, released under a freely distributable license and can be downloaded without charge. With even tighter constraints facing the public sector, cost is an important consideration for any information and communication technology solution.
| Reference Management - Best Free Software | |
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 | Zotero is a high quality service that manages bibliographic data and related research materials. It's produced by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. https://www.zotero.org/ License: GNU Affero General Public License (version 3) The developers also provide a free online service called ZoteroBib. It offers a very streamlined way of producing high quality bibliographies, and is designed for people who only occasionally produce bibliographies. |
 | JabRef is reference management software that uses BibTeX and BibLaTeX as its native formats. This is a Java application so it runs on all major operating systems. http://www.jabref.org/ License: MIT License |
 | Docear is an academic literature suite. Docear is based on JabRef, and the mind mapping software Freeplane. http://www.docear.org/ License: GNU General Public License v2 |
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