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citation

Five Powerful Citation Tools to Unlock Academic Success

by Dr. Bruce Ellis October 20, 2023

written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

Citing your work is an essential part of doing research. And, if you are like me, keeping track of where you are finding your information can feel chaotic and unorganized. Some folks learned to cite their work using index cards, while others use Post-it notes or Google Docs. Now, there are online tools specially designed to create, sort, and share citations in a variety of ways. Maybe you work with students and are looking for a good tool to share. Or you might be writing a grant proposal and need to track your research. Whatever your task, let’s take a look at some features common to citation tools to help evaluate and identify one that’s right for you.

Online Citation Tool Features

Citation Generation

Online citation tools can generate the citation for you based on your preferred style including APA, MLA, Chicago, and more. Share the URL of the resource and allow the tool to work its magic to gather the info you need. If your tool is free or not quite so robust, it may provide a form in which you enter the various pieces of information. Then, it puts them all together to create a citation according to your style guide.

Reference Management

Online tools typically provide some type of management to help you keep track of your citations. It could be limited to one list of citations that can be sorted and adjusted on the fly. If you’re lucky, the citation tool could allow you to create different lists of citations, so that they do not intermingle. This is great if you’re working on citing your work for different projects or research papers.

Collaboration Features

Some citation tools provide a collaboration feature. This will allow you (or your students) to work in groups but keep their citations in a single place. Everyone in the group can access, add to, and edit the citations as needed. This could be a great benefit, depending on the type of project you are working on.

Five Online Citation Tools

Zotero

Zotero is a free and easy-to-use research and citation tool that helps you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. It can automatically detect research as you browse the web, and it supports a wide range of sources, including articles, books, preprints, news stories, and more. You can sort items into collections, tag them with keywords, and create saved searches that automatically update with relevant materials as you work. Additionally, you have the option to synchronize your data across devices, so you can always access your research from anywhere.

Zotero also makes it easy to collaborate with others. You can share a Zotero library with as many people as you like at no cost. This makes it easy to co-write a paper with a colleague, distribute course materials to students, or build a collaborative bibliography. Overall, Zotero is a powerful and versatile research and citation tool that can help you save time and stay organized. It is a great option for students, researchers, and anyone else who needs to manage a large collection of research sources.

RefSeek

RefSeek is an academic search engine and citation tool that helps students and researchers find relevant and reliable information for their assignments. It indexes documents, including web pages, books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers. One of the things that sets RefSeek apart from other search engines is its focus on academic sources. When you search for a topic on RefSeek, you’re more likely to see results from scholarly websites, academic journals, and other reputable sources.

Another great thing about RefSeek is that it’s easy to use. The search bar is simple and straightforward, and the results pages are clearly organized. You can filter your results by source type, publication date, and other criteria. You can also create and save your own custom search folders. This can be helpful for managing your research. In addition to its search features, RefSeek also generates citations for your sources in a variety of different styles, including MLA, APA, and Chicago. You can also use RefSeek to create bibliographies and reference lists.

Citation Machine

Citation Machine is a freemium website that helps students create citations in a variety of formats. It’s easy to use and reliable, but the free version is cluttered with ads (which may not be appropriate for students) and can be slow to load. If you’re looking for a more powerful citation generator, you may want to consider a paid subscription to a service like EasyBib or Zotero. However, if you’re just starting out with research and citations, Citation Machine is a good option to try. When using Citation Machine, be as accurate as possible when entering the information about your source. The more information you provide, the better this citation tool will be able to generate a citation for you.

Mendeley

Mendeley is a free and open-source reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, generate citations, and collaborate with others. Mendeley can help you save time on your research by automatically generating citations and bibliographies. It can also help you stay organized by providing a central place to store and manage all of your research sources. Additionally, Mendeley makes it easy to collaborate with other researchers by sharing your research folders and groups. Overall, Mendeley is a powerful and easy-to-use reference manager that can be a huge help for students. Though it does offer premium features, you will find the free version is more than adequate.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a free, web-based search and citation tool that indexes scholarly literature from a variety of sources, including academic journals, books, conference proceedings, and theses. It is a popular tool for students, researchers, and academics to find and cite relevant sources for their work. Google Scholar provides comprehensive search results, an easy-to-use citation generator, and integrates with other Google tools. Though Scholar is an easy tool to use, its citation generator is not always accurate. Scholar can also be biased toward research that is published in English, so if you are looking for research in other languages, this may not be your go-to tool of choice.

Bonus Tool

ResearchRabbit

ResearchRabbit is not focused on being a citation generator or manager, though it does provide these features. It is a free and easy-to-use tool that can help you stay organized and up-to-date on the latest research. It also provides personalized recommendations for related research. You may find this tool better for adults and high school students. It can help you find relevant research by allowing you to search for articles by keyword, author, or journal. You can also create saved searches so that you can easily stay up-to-date on new research in your field.

ResearchRabbit can help you organize your research by allowing you to create and manage projects. Each project can contain a collection of articles, notes, and other resources. You can also create tags to help you categorize your research. Plus, it can help you stay up-to-date on the latest research by sending you email alerts when new articles are published in your field. You can also follow other users and see what they are reading.

So, which option will you be using yourself or with your students to help cite work accurately and easily? Do you have a citation tool you use other than one of the ones mentioned above? If so, feel free to share it in the comments below; share the name of the tool and what you love about it.

October 20, 2023 0 comment

Making Student Research as Easy as Candy

by Lori Gracey August 10, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

Teaching students how to take the tremendous amount of information and data that is available to them on the web and then do something useful with it becomes a little harder every day. Information overload, plagiarism, finding exactly the right content and then remembering where you found it, correctly citing sources — these make research projects of any kind difficult for both students and teachers.

How Candy Helps with Research

If you’re using the Chrome browser, however, there is a new extension available that will solve many of these digital literacy problems. Candy styles itself as “the flexible and visual way to organize the best things from the web” and it’s true. Once the extension has been added, students can conduct their research as they normally would. But as they collect information that they need, they are now able to highlight the data, drop it onto a “Candy card” with automatic site location and citation, and then organize the ideas into a “Storyline” to reveal connections and find answers. Candy cards can be dragged and dropped into different orders, which is fabulous for organizing the final draft, and the contents of each card are searchable. Once the research is complete, the Storyline can be exported as a text file with just one click.

What’s Great About Candy

research Information and quotes from any source can be Candyed, including websites, social media, videos, images, and more. When you’re ready to insert the Candy cards into a document, the original source comes with it, making citation simple, complete, and automatic. To help students throughout the project, a teacher can ask that the Storyline in digest format be emailed to her to look over. Candys can also be shared via email and social media and inserted into blog posts, which is great for student blogs.

To the left is a sample Candy Storyline on 2015’s Hurricane Patricia. Each of the green sections is a separate Candy card. There is no limit to the number of cards that can be attached to a Storyline.

I really believe that this Chrome extension is one that all students in grades 4-12 should be using on a regular basis because it makes the whole research process much easier to manage and to understand. Simple to use, free, and makes life easier — the perfect candy for the classroom!

August 10, 2016 0 comment

Content Areas Web 2.0 Tool

EasyBib EDU Is Here and It’s FREE!

by Lori Gracey June 13, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

EasyBib is a wonderful and accurate citation generator and bibliography creator available for student use. There is a free website for the MLA style, along with both an Android and an iOS app. There’s even an EasyBib toolbar for Chrome.

So What’s New with EasyBib EDU?

In the past, full access to all of the citation styles and the ability to save content to individual student notebooks required a paid account. But now, EasyBib EDU is free for schools, continuing to give students access to all citation styles (including APA, Chicago, and the new MLA 8th edition coming this summer) and notebook features, while providing campuses the tools to manage those student accounts. EasyBib EDU is available with coupon code access, which you can sign up for here. Coupon codes will be distributed by August 5, 2016, for schools that sign up by July 29. Individual campuses must sign up; there is no district registration available.

What makes the tool really stand out is that schools can sign in with Google and use the current EasyBib Google app to provide a single sign on option for their students. The login with Google button will remain as a sign in option on EDU. Google integrations like the Paper link will also remain. Students can instantly export their content to Word or Google Docs and can share information among project groups using the “Public Folders” function. Over the next few months, the company will be rolling out new features like an updated notebook, annotation tool, and Google Docs add-on.

While this tool will not change the world, it can make the research process simpler for students. It is currently used by numerous universities and colleges, so getting your high school students familiar with it is a smart idea. And it will help to combat plagiarism, which is always a good thing.

June 13, 2016 1 comment

Content Areas Google Tips and Tricks

The Remarkable Research Tool

by Diana Benner April 11, 2016

written by Diana Benner

Do your students have an upcoming research project? As we all know, it is very important to teach students how to effectively cite sources, conduct proper searches, evaluate websites, and more, all while focusing on their content. Sometimes this can be a challenge, but Google has a remarkable tool to help students with all of this. As students work on gathering information, consider taking advantage of the tool. Below are some highlights.

Features of the Research Tool

The Research tool is a very powerful feature in Google Drive. It allows students to search for information simultaneously as they are writing. The Research tool is available in Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Drawing, and it allows students to do several things:

Easily Search and Preview Sites: Students can easily search Google services by applying filters such as Google Scholar, Google Images, Dictionary, and Quotes. In addition, students can preview a website by using the “Preview” feature. This will allow them to get a glimpse of the website in order to determine if they actually want to take the time and visit it.

Cite Sources: Students can select which format they would like to use to cite their sources. Available formats include MLA, APA, and Chicago. This feature is very important because we don’t want our students to forget to give credit for information that’s not their own.

Insert Images: Students can search for images to add to their data by selecting the “Image” filter. Once students see an image they would like to use in their research, they can drag the image from the research pane directly into their document and the image will automatically be cited. How great is that? Students can even limit their Image search to “free to use, share, or modify” by filtering the image usage rights. This will help keep students from violating copyright and is key if their work is going to be published online.

Insert Links: Students can easily add links to their papers by clicking “Insert Link” when they find a website they would like to include. In addition, students can click “Cite” to create a footnote citation for that link.

Research Google Scholar: Students can use Google Scholar by filtering their search for “Scholar.” Google Scholar provides a simple way for students to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, they can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court opinions, from academic publishers, online repositories, universities, and other websites. Google Scholar helps students find relevant work across the world of scholarly research. If you aren’t familiar with Google Scholar, here is a good introductory video about it.

Insert Quotes: Students can search and include relevant quotes in their work. Just like images and links, the quotes can be cited.

All of these features work while sharing. So if you have a group of students working on a project together, you can see who added what and when.

Accessing the Research Tool

To access the Research tool, click on Tools –> Research. The Research pane will pop up on the right-hand side so you can begin searching.

Checking for Plagiarism

In addition to all the above features, the Research tool can also be used to check for plagiarism. All you have to do is copy and paste a few sentences from the work directly into the search box of the research pane and the search will take you to any site from which the text was plagiarized. Let your students know you will be checking their work for plagiarism and have them try this feature before turning in their project. This may help to deter them from plagiarizing in the first place.

The Research tool can save students a lot of time when conducting their research. Allowing students to focus on the actual research process will only improve the quality of their final results. If you are a fan of the Research tool or want to learn more about other Google tools, consider joining us for the Chromebook Academy this July. You can find more information about the Academy here.

April 11, 2016 0 comment

Digital Literacy

Helping Students Find and Cite Photos (Updated)

by Lori Gracey August 18, 2015

written by Lori Gracey

Teaching students to correctly cite resources they use in their reports can be a difficult task. But Photos for Class can make it easier for them. Photos for Class is a free website that allows students to search for and download images that are safe to use in schools with the Creative Commons license. All of the images available are appropriate due to their proprietary filtering system, so that’s a big relief for teachers. But the best thing about the site is that, when the image is downloaded, the author, title of the image, a link to the original photo, and the image license terms are automatically added to the bottom of the graphic. So students can’t help citing their source.

Explaining Copyright First

Before starting to use Photos for Class with students, take time to teach them about why it’s a great tool. Explain basic copyright law to them using one of the resources below.

Copyright Kids
Copyright with CyberBee
Teaching Copyright (lessons and handouts)
YouTube Copyright School (five-minute video)

Putting the Photos Tool into Use

Once students understand the basics of copyright law, put them into small groups or pairs and have them create short scenarios illustrating the main ideas. Then have each group share their scenario and ask the rest of the class to determine what action should be taken. Finally, show students Photos for Class and how to use the search feature. Discuss with them how each image is automatically cited and what each part of the citation means.

By the way, if you are using Edmodo, then you can quickly add the Photos for Class free app from the Edmodo store.

As of this month, Photos for Class now includes public domain images from Pixabay’s safe search, which really enlarges the library of graphics available. This is great news for students and staff.

Photos for Class is a very easy-to-use website that can eliminate one small headache for both teachers and students – the problem of finding appropriate images to use in class projects and then citing them correctly.

This blog was updated with additional resources on March 16, 2018.

August 18, 2015 0 comment