Economics 188 — Bibliography/Citation Formatting Resources |
Don't forget, the most important issues in constructing your bibliography are consistency and accuracy.
- Consistency: if you cited a particular source one way and you have a source of the same kind later in your bibliography, follow the same construct you used in the first instance.
- Accuracy: think of how nice it is to find someone else's bibliography and to be able to successfully track down their citations. You can only do that if their citation is accurate; make sure your citations are easily trackable for future researchers.
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- UCSC Library How To...Use Citation Guides - note that the the library owns physical (book) copies of all of the citation guides mentioned in this How To Guide. Ask at the Reference Desk to see the book version of the guide(s).
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Online Tools - or, Gifts to You, the Student Researcher |
There are many different options available for simplifying the bibliography creation process. The few listed below are ones with which the Economics Librarian is familiar and reasonably helfpul.
- Library Databases: many of the library's databases offer citation formatting options. When using the databases, look for terms like "format references," OR "format citations" and follow the instructions provided by the database provider. A good example of this may be found in EBSCO Business Source Premier .
- To format a citation using the database's citation tool do the following:
- open EBSCO Business Source Premier
- search for "ipod and asia " as an example
- click on one or two citation results (click on the folder icon located to the right of the cites)
- when you are ready to format your citations, select (click on) the folder icon - it will say "folder has items"
- check the boxes to the left of the items you saved in the folder
- select either print or email (depending on whether you want a print copy or an emailed copy of citations)
- click on the "citation format" radial button and pick your citation format (APA, MLA, Chicago, whichever your professor has requested)
- finally, select "print" or "email." The citations will either print out or be emailed to you, depending on what you selected
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- UC-eLinks - almost all of the library's databases include UC-eLinks. UC-eLinks is a tool that allows you to search for a full-text copy of an article or book from within a database. It is particularly useful if the database you are searching in does not have a copy of the article or book you need. It is also useful for capturing and formatting citations.
- To format a citation using UC-eLinks:
- open a database, for example EBSCO Business Source Premier
- conduct a search, for example, "ipod and Asia "
- choose any of the results and click on the UC-eLinks button
- under the header "Add Citation to a Bibliography" click on "copy & paste citation"
- select the appropriate citation style from the drop down box
- highlight and copy and paste the formatted citation into a Word document
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- Endnote Web - Endnote Web is "free" to you as a UCSC student because the library subscribes to a database whose parent company offers Endnote Web as an additional resource to UCSC students, faculty and staff. After you graduate, Endnote Web is no longer a resource that will be available to you.
Endnote requires a bit more thought than some of the other bibliographic tools, but if you are planning on attending graduate school, it is a good tool with which to become familiar. Additionally, it has a, for purchase, very robust and flexible, software package that is incredibly helpful for scholars who conduct a lot of research - a good tool for graduate school.
Pros: portable, web-based, offers many different citation formats, free to you as a student, nice "cite while you write" download, can manually enter citations for databases that won't allow imports, can download references from Melvyl
Cons: not all references may be directly exported into it, some references need to be downloaded from one database and then uploaded into Endnote Web. Requires knowledge of database and sometimes vendor names to help ensure the import process
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How to use it:
- set up an account here (Remember if you are off campus and try to set up an account, you must first login to Off Campus Access so the library will recognize you as a UCSC student)
- search a database (try EBSCO Business Source Premier) for "ipod and Asia " as an example
- select one or two articles (click the folder to the right of each citation)
- when you are ready to format your citations, select (click on) the folder icon - it will say "folder has items"
- check the boxes to the left of the items you saved in the folder
- select the "Export" option
- select the second option "Generic bibliographic management software"
- click the "save" button
- when the screen with the text of your citations pops up, choose "save page as" from the browser's file drop down list
- rename the file anything you want AND make sure the file extension is txt (not htm or html) and save it somewhere you will find it, the desktop, for example
- next, login into endnote web
- in Endnote Web, select the tab called "collect"
- select the link called "Import References"
- choose "browse" to locate the file you saved to your desktop or disk
- next choose the name of the database vendor you used to find the citations (in this case, Business Source Premier/EBSCO) from the drop down list called "Filter"
- when you have your file located and the Business Source Premier filter selected, click the button labeled "import"
- when the import is complete, a message will appear that says references have been imported into "unfiled"
- click on the My References tab and click on the link to "unfiled"
- your citations, fully formatted will be there
Organize your citations:
- you may create new folders and move your uploaded citations to those folders (for example, an ECON 188 folder).
- you may do that in the "organize" tab by creating a new group
- click on the button called "new group" and name the group.
- go back to the "my references" tab to move items into your new folder/group.
- simply click on the unfiled folder and select the items you want to move into the new group/folder, then select the folder/group name from the drop-down box on the page
- then click on the "go button" and the references will move into your new group.
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Create your bibliography:
- when you are done gathering your citations and are ready to create your bibliography, select the "format" tab
- from the references drop down box, select the group/folder of citations you want to format
- from the bibliographic style drop down box, select the citation style
- from the file format drop down box, select RTF (rich text file)
- save it OR email it OR preview and print
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Zotero - Zotero is a web-based,open source (no vendors or companies are behind its creation) free resource. It is a Firefox Browser plug-in (an add on to a web browser called Firefox). It is very simple to use and requires no knowledge of library database names. As long as the people who are collaboratively improving and building Zotero continue to make it available to the world at-large, for free, Zotero will be available to you regardless of whether you are a current UCSC student or former UCSC student. It is available to everyone anywhere.
Pros: simple interface, do not need to know names of databases, no downloading of records, can use your own tags or terms to help organize your citations, cite while you write word plug-in available
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Install it:
- if you do not have Firefox as a web browser, you will need to download it
- once you have downloaded Firefox, download Zotero
- after Zotero downloads, you will be asked to restart Firefox, go ahead and do so
- if the download was successful, you will see the word Zotero on the lower right side of your browser screen
How to use it:
- pick a database to search, try EBSCO Business Source Premier (any keyword search)
- when you see your search results, look in the top browser address (url) window, you should see a yellow folder icon
- click on that icon, select one or two articles from the list (check the boxes)
- click okay, notice in the bottom right of the browser a pop up box confirming that the number of items you selected are being saved
- now click on the word Zotero on the lower right of your browser screen
- you should see the items you selected
Organize your citations:
- with Zotero open, click on the yellow folder icon with the green circle/+ sign
- a pop-up will open, asking you to name a folder
- use the folder to organize your citations - highlight the citations you want to move into the new folder and drag and drop them in to the new folder
Create your bibliography:
- highlight the citations you want to include in your bibliography
- right-click and select "Create Bibliography from Selected Items"
- choose desired citation style
- make sure "Save as RTF" is selected
- click "ok"
- when the "save as" pop-up appears, name the file something meaningful and save it somewhere you can find it again
- open the document and look at your bibliography
Using the "locate" button in Zotero:
- this button will allow you to search for items you have saved in your Zotero library in Melvyl
- say you want to see if the copy you looked at 2 months ago is still on the shelf at UCSC or if you can Interlibrary Loan it (borrow it from another library)
- to get this to work, you need to do the following:
- open Zotero and click on the gear icon ( it is grey and round and looks like a gear or a Lego Bionicle part)
- select "preferences"
- and paste the following url into the box named "Resolver" located at the bottom of the Preferences pop up window: http://ucelinks.cdlib.org:8888/sfx_local
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Cite While You Write:
Endnote Web:
- locate and download the Word plugin within the Endnote Web "format" tab.
- when asked if you want to run the program/install, say yes/ok
- after the program is installed, you should see a new set of tools/icons in Word
- before you can cite while you write you must first tell Word where to find your Endnote citations
- to do that, in Word, select the Tools menu, then select the Endnote Web option
- next select "Endnote Web Cite While You Write Preferences"
- next select the "Application" tab
- enter the email address and password you use to access Endnote web in the boxes labeled email and password at the bottom of the dialog box
- check the "remember my password" box
- click okay
- test it out, type a few sentences, save the Word document as an rtf (rich text file) and then click the magnifying glass icon
- a dialog box pops open, type the name of the citation or author you are looking for
- when the citation appears, click on it
- the citation will appear in brackets { } don't worry about that there are more steps
- when you are done with your paper and have inserted all of your citations, go to the "format" tab in Endnote Web
- locate your paper on your computer (use the "browse for file" option)
- select the citation format you want to use
- click "format"
- if your browser has a pop-up blocker, allow the pop-up
- open the word document, your formatted paper and list of References, should be there
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Zotero
- download the Word plugin
- after you have installed the plugin you should see a new set of tools/icons in Word
- type a few sentences
- click on the icon that has an r quotes and a red Z
- a pop up box of your Zotero library should open up
- click on one of your citations
- click ok
- the formatted citation should appear
- when you are finished typing your paper and inserting your refernces, click on the icon that looks like a lined piece of paper (located between the two icons with pencils)
- this will insert all of the citations you referenced in your paper in order, fully formatted
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All of the above tools are tremendous time-savers and are incredibly useful. Just make sure (particularly with Zotero but really with all of them) that the citations look correct and that they are consistently formatted. That means that you should look at the APA Guide and make sure that the citations are formatted appropriately. If you have citations for two different journal articles (plain old, regular journal articles, nothing fancy about either one) make sure they are formatted the same way. The temptation to let the program do it all is strong, but inconsistent citation formatting is pretty obvious and my guess is it will not be looked upon favorably by your professor. Be an informed consumer of these excellent tools.
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- Endnote Web Help: the company has many on-line tutorials and free webinars to walk you through use of the program, take advantage of them
- Endnote Web: UCSC Librarians have compiled an excellent help page for both the software version of Endnote and the web version. Make sure you follow the Endnote Web instructions and not the software instructions though (they are clearly marked).
- Zotero Help: the Zotero help pages are very, very useful. Spend some time exploring the FAQ section and read about Zotero's other numerous features.
- Zotero: the Zotero quick start page is also very useful and worth exploring
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