MENDELEY: Simplifying References and Citation Style

This entry was posted in Category Dissertation , Editor , on March 11 , 2016.

Running out of time and these references are eating your head?

But, you are not alone. Let me tell you my story.

I, Sarah Jane, research scholar at Department of Energy and Climate Change, Northwestern University was in the snag of meeting the deadline. All my doing, thinking, eating, sleeping and breathing summarized into researching and writing thesis.

Deadlines were taking the round of my head. After putting all my efforts, I was left with the references and citations to manage in my research paper. As we all know, each journal has its own requirements including citation and reference style and it was the most time taking task for me to do.

Frankly speaking, all that night I was looking for the shortcuts to do the reference and citation part and you know what I have found??

MENDELEY: Plugging in to save time!!

I typed ‘Reference Manager’ in the Google and went through the suggestions, and thought to give a shot to ‘MENDELEY’

Okay! Enough with the suspense now.

Let me explain you my version of ‘Mendeley’. ’

‘Mendeley’ is a combination of a desktop application and website which helped me in managing, sharing and discovering content and contacts in my research. I found ‘Mendeley’ is the best to work with as it offers amazing features, such as:

• It works well with PFDs and I enjoyed this feature the most.
• It has built in PDF viewer and annotator so I didn’t face any problem in viewing my copy of document
• I shared papers with collaborative groups and got in touch with some of the most intellectual human beings.
• I could easily access ‘Mendeley’ via standalone app, Mendeley web and this feature is a boon for a traveler like me. One can easily access ‘Mendeley’ even on the ‘Go’
• Platform Independent!! Yeah, it works well on PC, Mac, Linux, iOS (Android version soon to be launched) with word, open office and LaTeX.

Now, let me tell you how you can make the most from ‘MENDELEY’

1. Add PDFs to Mendeley: I used to add PDFs to Mendeley for my ease and doing this was quite simple. I just had to click on the ‘Add Document’ button on the left most side of the toolbar alternatively there was

2. Watch Folder: Here is my ‘Helping Folder’. I call watch folder a ‘helping folder’. Wanna know why? Okay! It’s because when you place a document in a watched folder, it will be automatically added to the ‘Mendeley’ so you can annotate, cite and browse its references instantly. Adding files to ‘Mendeley’ using watched folder makes it easier to add multiple papers in one go and keep them where you want on your computer.

3. Merging duplicate Author name, Tags, or Publications:

With ‘Mendeley’ the duplicity in author name, tags or publication is almost zero. Now see, how it helped me!

In the filter by author/tags/publication pane, click a name that has duplicity or is incorrect, drag and drop it onto the correct one to rename it.

4. Annotate PDFs:

‘Mendeley’ had given me the freedom to add highlights and annotations to document in mendeley’s PDF viewer. Click on highlight text or add note to get started with PDF viewer.

For sharing the annotation you need to export a PDF.

~5. Word and OpenOffice Plug-in:

This feature of ‘Mendeley’ helped me to save a lot of time. As I have already added my documents to ‘Mendeley’, I could now cite and reference them within Word and OpenOffice with ease. After installing Mendeley, I found the ‘Mendeley toolbar’ button in Word that allowed me cite a document, generate a bibilography or manually edit any entry.

1. You can click on the ‘insert citation’ button in the ‘Mendeley’ toolbar.

2. Now, select the document in ‘Mendeley’ desktop, and click on ‘send citation’ button. You can also cite multiple documents. Now, hold the control key and left click on the document you want to cite.

3. Select the ‘citation style’ in the drop down menu in word processor and you are done.

4. The citation is now added to the word.

5. Clink on the ‘Insert bibliography’ button to generate bibliography.

This was enough for me to cover the references and citations. I hope, this will help you too. In case, you still have any query regarding the same, kindly leave your comments in comment box.

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