Skip to Main Content

MATH 260: Intermediate Applied Statistics

What are citation managers?

Citation Managers are tools that allow you to:

  • Automatically save the bibliographic information of sources you'd like to cite in your papers, including the title, author, and publication date.
  • Use the saved bibliographic information to automatically generate in-text citations, footnotes, and bibliographies in any citation style.
  • Keep track of and annotate PDFs and other documents associated with your sources.
  • Share your sources with others.

The University of Puget Sound supports two citation managers: Zotero and RefWorks. Activate one of the links below to view our guides for each:

Which Citation Manager is right for me?

Use the table below to compare Zotero and RefWorks and decide which is best for your use case. If you have any further questions, feel free to send an email to or book an appointment with one of your librarians.

Feature Zotero RefWorks
Desktop App Windows, Mac, and Linux  
Web App
Browser Extension
Local Storage Unlimited  
Cloud Storage 300mb: $0
2GB: $20/year
6GB: $60/year
Unlimited: $120/year
100GB
Direct Export from Primo  
Microsoft Word Integration
Google Docs Integration
LibreOffice Integration
PDF Annotation
Collaboration
Web Page Snapshots  
Data Export to Other Citation Managers
Keep Account After Graduation
Code Availability Open Source Proprietary (ProQuest)

What about citing sources by hand?

There are many reasons not to cite sources by hand:

  • It's time consuming.
  • With footnotes or numbered styles, adding one to the middle of your paper will require you to change the number of every citation after it.
  • If you delete an in-text citation, you'll need to remember to delete the corresponding entry in your bibliography.

However, you should absolutely know how to read a citation to ensure that your citation manager captured all the relevant information without making any mistakes. Here's an example of a bibliography entry for a journal article cited in APA 7:

  • Author Last Name, Initials. (Year of publication). Title of article. Name of Journal, volume(issue), page range.
  • Mann, S. A. (2011). Pioneers of U.S. ecofeminism and environmental justice. Feminist Formations, 23(2), 1–25.

If you'd like examples of sources cited in different styles, you can consult Sound Writing, our student writing handbook, or use one of the Librarian-curated documents below for the style you're using: