Citation Generators: Advantages and Disadvantages: Bibliographic Management Systems

RefWorks is a powerful online research management system that is designed to help researchers gather, organize, annotate, store and share all types of information and generate different styles of citations and bibliographies. 

As York faculty and students, you can create an account on campus or in VPN environment at home, then you can log in anywhere. With RefWorks, you can

• Import bibliographic data from OneSearch, GoogleScholar, or other databases
• Manage your resources by using folders or adding tags
• Create in-text citations and annotated bibliographies
• Create reference lists in different citation styles
• Access sources within Microsoft Word

Developed at George Mason University, Zotero is a free open source utility that works with web browsers, such as Firefox or Chorme, to help users collect, store, and manage bibliographic data and related research materials. With Zotero, you can

• Save the full reference information from library catalogs, databases, PubMed, and even Amazon to the Zotero library
• Add notes, tags, or attachments to saved webpages or full text PDF
• Generate citations and bibliographies in various styles
• Create your own customized citation style

EndNote is an online reference management solution that allows users to collect references from a variety of resources, organize, share and access them from any computer. With the installation of Microsoft Word, users can create bibliographies as they write a paper.

Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network. Users can automatically generate bibliographies, and collaborate with other researchers online.