3d. Storing Sources#
Introduction#
Once you have selected your sources, you should make sure you store them effectively so you can find and cite them throughout your project. A reference manager and a good tagging and folder system can help you a lot throughout this process.
Use a Reference Manager
Learn how to start using a reference manager
Create Tags
Create tags to categorise your sources
Step 1 Use a Reference Manager#
Storing, organizing, sharing and citing literature is an important part of research. You can do this manually, or use one of the many reference management tools available.
Reference management software (also called RMS) and tools help you to manage all the literature you find during your research, so that you can easily use them when writing a paper. They also make it easier to change the formatting of your reference list and to keep in-text citations and reference lists consistent.
"Use a Reference Manager" by TU Delft Library Education Support is licensed under CC-BY
Guided activity: Get Started with a Reference Manager
Step 1: Select a reference manager you want to try out:
Suggested reference managers are Endnote, Mendeley or Zotero
For each of these, consult the tutorials as you go through the other steps to learn how to do this for your chosen reference manager:
Step 2: Add an academic article to your library manually:
Manually add some references to your library. Look at the available document types and notice the (different) fields available to describe them. Also, if your tool offers a preview-mode, see what the references will look like in different output styles.
Step 3: Add academic articles to your library via the browser:
Install relevant plugins to import an article straight from the browser. Try adding an article from Scopus or Dimensions directly via your browser. Does this work as expected, and does it always extract enough information?
Step 4: Adding academic articles via a PDF import:
Import a pdf-file and extract the bibliographic information from it. Does this work as expected, and does it always extract enough information?
Step 5: Adding other document types to your library:
Add one or more references for other document types than articles and books to your library. Think about photos, images, tables, data sets, book chapters, conference papers, reports, standards, patents, or any other document type you may use. What possibilities might this offer to you?