A Must Have Bibliography and Citation Maker for Student Researchers

November 11, 2015
Writinghouse is an excellent free bibliography and citation maker. It allows you to automatically generate citations in various referencing styles including: MLA, APA, Chicago, and Harvard. We have been experimenting with it for awhile and found it really worth the shout-out here.

Besides the citation and bibliography features, Writinghouse also offers other interesting tools to help students with their writing process. For instance, the Word Counter is a great way to keep track of the number of words you have written in an essay. There is also a section in this website featuring some good  resources to help you  learn more about the concept of bibliography and how to create one using different styles.

There are two ways you can create citations in Writinghouse: The first one is  manual where you get to choose the source you want to cite (e.g book, encyclopedia or dictionary, magazine or newspaper, journal article, biblical, website, or online journal) then you type in its corresponding info such as title, edition, place and year of publication etc. The second way is automatic and consists of using the search functionality provided by WorldCat. You simply type in title of the book, author or any other key word and choose the citation style from the drop-down menu and hit search. Writinghouse will conduct a quick search and provide you with the relevant results. We have tried this search tool several times and it was so far accurate. For instance, we searched for James Paul Gee's book 'What Video Games have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy' and here is what we got:

Once your bibliography is compiled you can then download a copy to keep with you.

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CiteFast- An Incredibly Easy Citation Tool for Students

July, 2015
Cite fast is an easy to use web tool for creating citations. Students can utilize it to generate citations in different formats: APA (6th edition), MAL (7th edition), or Chicago (16th edition). The site provides a wide variety of features citation creation super easy and all for free. Some of these features include: automatic look up of journals, books and webpages; easy cut and paste and exporting to MS Word; In-text citation generator with guide and many more.

Citefast automatically saves your citations for four days provided you access it from the same computer.But you can create your own free account and save and access your citations across different platforms. The way Citefast works is pretty simply:

1- Click on the citation format you want to use then select a source. The sources provided are : webpage, journal, web image, book, newspaper, and online video.

2- Cite a book, article, website, or film, by searching or entering the information yourself. Click on the "Add citation" button when finished.

3- View your citation in the bibliography on the right and continue citing.

4- Export your bibliography to Word or copy/paste into your paper

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Citelighter- An Indispensable Tool for Academics and Student Researchers

June 3, 2015
Cite lighter is a very good web tool for student researchers, teachers and academics. It combines both the features of an academic search engine and an organizational framework for helping students with their research papers writing. Citeligther allows you to easily search for facts and information to back your arguments and it automatically cites your sources using different citation styles: MLA, APA, and Chicago).

To start using Citelighter, you will need to sign up. Once registered you can then download Citelighter toolbar to help you manage and organize your materials. Using the different functionalities of your toolbar, you will be able to start on writing your own paper. You can search for and capture important information to add to your paper, Citelighter takes care of the bibliograhic work for you. Watch the video below to learn more about how Citelighter works and what you can do with it. Cite lighter offers both a free basic account with limited features and a premium account with more advanced features.

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A Very Good Tool for Generating Citations, Reference Lists and Bibliographies

April 7, 2015
A few days ago, we published a list of some of the best web tools to help you manage and organize your citations and references. One of the useful tools we forgot to include to that list is RefMe. We are pretty sure several of you already know about it. However, here is a concise review of RefMe for those of you not familiar with it.

RefMe is a web tool and mobile app that you can use to automate citations, reference lists and bibliographies.  RefMe also offers a bunch of powerful features that will definitely help students in their research. Some of these features include :

• Generate citations by scanning book or journal barcodes using your phone’s camera.
• No Barcode? Search by Book/Article Title, ISBN, ISSN, DOI or URL.
• Citing a website? Simply paste in the URL or use RefME.com, which syncs with the app and is perfect for websites.
• A wide variety of citation styles including APA, MLA, Chicago and AMA as well as most school/college-specific styles. 
• Add notes to your citations, both in the app and at RefME.com.
• Export via Email or Evernote using the app.
• Send your work straight to MS Word, EndNote and more from RefME.com.

RefMe me is available as web tool, iOS app and Android app.

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6 of The Best Web Tools for Organizing and Managing Citations, References and Bibliographies

April 1, 2015
One of the onerous parts in essay and academic writing is the bibliography section. Managing, organizing and citing references can sometimes be a real challenge especially if you don't keep track of what and who you cite. The last thing you would want after a strenuous writing task is a messy bibliography  with one reference missing page numbers the other needs publication date or, worse of all, having to go back to your sources to check for the source of  that quotation you included in your conclusion. If you find yourself constantly grappling with  problems  such as these, the web tools below are absolutely something you might need to consider. These are some of the best applications for organizing, managing, and publishing bibliographies, citations and references. Some of these softwares are integrated with Google Scholar.

1- Zotero

"Zotero collects all your research in a single, searchable interface. You can add PDFs, images, audio and video files, snapshots of web pages, and really anything else. Zotero automatically indexes the full-text content of your library, enabling you to find exactly what you're looking for with just a few keystrokes."
2- RefWorks

RefWorks -- an online research management, writing and collaboration tool -- is designed to help researchers easily gather, manage, store and share all types of information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies.
3- Mendeley

Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research. Here is what you can do with Mendeley:

• Automatically generate bibliographies
• Collaborate easily with other researchers online
• Easily import papers from other research software
• Find relevant papers based on what you’re reading
• Access your papers from anywhere online
• Read papers on the go, with our new iPhone app

4-Endnote

EndNote gives you the tools you need for searching, organizing and sharing your research. It allows you to easily create bibliographies while writing your next paper with features like Cite While You Write . Maximize your time with features like finding full text for your references and automatically updating records. Whether you’re on your desktop, online, or iPad, EndNote’s syncing capabilities let you access all of your references, attachments, and groups from anywhere.

5- EasyBib

Create accurate MLA, APA, and Chicago style citations in seconds by scanning a book bar code or by typing the name of a book. Build and manage your works cited. Once done, email your citations and then export your citations to EasyBib.com's popular bibliography management service.

6- Citeulike

Citeulike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references.Some of its features include:

• Easily store references you find online
• Discover new articles and resources
• Automated article recommendationsNEW
• Share references with your peers
• Find out who's reading what you're reading
• Store and search your PDFs

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EasyBib Tool- An Incredibly Helpful App for Citing Websites

February 13, 2015
EasyBib Tools is definitely a must have app for college and research students. With one click you can generate citations for websites and create bibliographies. It is a time saving tool for sure but I would not trust it one hundred per cent, always go through the citations and make sure they are properly formatted.

EasyBib tools also provides you with a bunch of other nifty features such as credibility ratings of the website you are visiting. You can also build a fully-formatted, alphabetized, and Word-processor-ready bibliography of all the sources you have cited.

Generating citations is free for only MLA style other styles such as APA and Chicago are for premium users.Also, to save and access your citations and bibliographies you create you will have to register with EasyBib Tools. Registration is free.

Watch this video to learn more about EasyBib Tools

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Internet Citation Checklist for Students

January 12, 2015
In an earliest post I shared Internet Citation Organizer, which is a tool from Read Write Think to help students record citation information to use when citing online sources. In this post, I am sharing another useful graphic organizer from Read Write Think  that students can use with the previous tool to properly cite Internet sources.

Internet Citation Checklist is a one page PDF document that features five key things students have to consider when working on their citation sources. As a teacher, you can download and print off this document and use it as a handout accompanying every research project students are to work on.
Thanks to Sara Dennis through whose lesson plan I learned about this resource.

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A Wonderful Tool to Help Students Cite Internet Sources

January 12, 2015
Internet Citation Organizer is an excellent graphic organizer provided for free by Read Write Think. Students can use this fillable PDF document to help them record bibliographical information of the resources they use from Internet. These pieces of information can later on be used to properly cite and reference online materials and websites.

Internet Citation Organizer is definitely a must have document for teachers. It can be used in any research project or classroom task that requires drawing on the net for extra resources and information. Internet Citation Organizer is also fillable which means that students can use it right on their browsers. For each source they want to cite they need to type in information such as : name of author, title, web address, copyright date and date found.They can also use “Print Citation Organizer” on top right hand corner of the document to print a copy of their cited sources or use “ Reset Citation Organizer” to start a new.

Thanks to Sara Dennis through whose lesson plan I learned about this resource.

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