Medicine: Manage Citations

APA, or the American Psychological Association, uses one of the most well-known citation styles.  Detailed information about using this style is available in the APA Style Guide (shown below), but you can also find information on the web about using the APA style:

• APA Tutorial "The Basics of APA Style"

• VT Libraries APA Webpage

• Purdue Online Writing Lab Website

MLA, or the Modern Language Association, provides another well-known citation style, used frequently within the Liberal Arts and Humanities. Detailed information is available in the MLA style guide, whose call number and library location is listed on the VT Libraries MLA webpage below, but you can also find information online about using MLA style:

• VT Libraries MLA webpage

• Purdue Online Writing Lab Website

Even more citation styles - the VT Libraries Citation and Style Manuals page provides descriptions of many more frequently used styles, each of which also link to resources for using the style:

• VT Libraries Citation and Style Manuals webpage

Citation managers are research project time-savers. They allow you to build your own database of citations and sources for your research projects. They provide tools to automate in-text citation and bibliography creation for research documents, such as research papers, grant proposals, and article manuscripts. They may also include options to share all or parts of your citation database with others - for collaborative research projects.

The Citation Managers library guide at VT Libraries is a great resource!

Virginia Tech Libraries recommends using any of these citation managers:

• Mendeley (free) | Mendeley Tutorials 
• Zotero (free) | Zotero Tutorials
• EndNote (provided by Virginia Tech Libraries through 2020) | EndNote X8 Tutorials

Each of these tools can be helpful, depending on what type of project you're working on. View this citation manager comparison chart from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for help deciding which tool to use:

Citation Manager Comparison Chart

If you have questions about using these tools, don't hesitate to contact your librarian or one of the citation manager support groups on the citation managers library guide!

Erin M. Smith, Health Sciences Research Librarian at VT University Libraries | erinsmith@vt.edu 

540-231-5663

Rita McCandless, Head Librarian, VTCSOM Library rmccandl@vt.edu 

540-526-2570