{"id":4607,"date":"2020-07-16T18:14:39","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T01:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-335335-1418010.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=4607"},"modified":"2021-03-16T09:45:37","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T16:45:37","slug":"review-of-the-best-citation-managers-and-how-to-choose-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenproductivity.com\/review-of-the-best-citation-managers-and-how-to-choose-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of the Best Citation Managers and How to Choose One"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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This post is geared towards students, residents, physicians, or researchers who need to keep track of journal articles and references. There is so much information out there and, as healthcare professionals, we need to be constantly aware of the new evidence and old evidence that guides our practice. However, you may have found it difficult to consistently organize, annotate, locate, or prioritize these articles.<\/p>

Why You Need a Citation Manager<\/b><\/h2>

Given your busy schedules, you want to have a way to easily import and reference these articles when needed. But if you are like most healthcare professionals, these articles end up swamping your desk and computer with no great way of organizing them. You are right, your time ought to be focused on high level tasks, and should not be spent on hours of organizing journal articles!<\/p>

Whether you are a student just trying to find a way to better organize your journal articles or a seasoned researcher, you must have a system to organize your journal articles if you want to keep sane.<\/p>

I was in this situation as well when I first started trying to do research as a 1<\/span>st<\/sup> year medical student. I was bombarded with articles and ended up just having a bunch of random PDFs cluttering my desktop. Needless to say my first research project was a flop.<\/span><\/p>

Over the past 15 years however, I\u2019ve tried to optimize the way I organize my references and citations to improve the way I work to prevent future failed projects. That\u2019s when I started to discover the power of citation managers. Implementing a citation managers as a busy academic physician was essential for me to successfully publish multiple journal articles and even a text book.<\/p>

Even if you don\u2019t do much research, you still need to keep up to date on your current field. I have found that anyone from students, residents, community physicians, academic physicians, and researchers can all benefit from using a citation manager. Many graduating medical students and residents have thanked me for teaching them how to use citations managers during their training and mentioned how much it helped them succeed in their future careers. I hope this posts can help you as succeed as well.<\/p>

How a Citation Manager Saves You Time<\/b><\/h2>
  1. Easily organizes your articles<\/li>
  2. Automatically names your articles based on MetaData<\/li>
  3. Finds articles quickly<\/li>
  4. Share articles with colleagues<\/li>
  5. Collaborate with groups<\/li><\/ol>

    How to Implement a Citation Manager in 2 Steps<\/b><\/h2>

    So you may have heard of some citation managers, but never took the step to implementing one because it seemed too confusing. Well in order to to implement a citation manager you have to do just 2 things:<\/p>

    1) Choose the Right Citation Manager for You<\/p>

    2) Properly Organize Your Articles Using the Citation Manager<\/p>

    In this article we will focus on how to find the best citation manager for your particular situation. If you are interested in further learning how to organize your articles in an optimal way I created an online course with instructional videos on exactly how to do that as well, check it out below:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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    Check out the Journal Article Management Course! (includes CME Credit)<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Citation\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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    The Top 3 Best Citation Managers<\/b><\/h2>

    It sounds like such a simple decision, but picking out a citation manager is extremely important. You could be using this program for years or even decades to come. Yes you can switch between programs, but they usually don\u2019t translate over perfectly. In this post, I will go in detail, in my opinion, the top 3 citation managers: Mendeley<\/u><\/i><\/b>, Zotero<\/u><\/i><\/b>, and Papers<\/u><\/i><\/b>. As a disclaimer, I used to use EndNote earlier in my career but have gravitated away from it since I believe these other 3 citation managers are more user-friendly, functional, and cheaper. At the end of the post, I will tell you which program I think is the best overall as well as best for specific scenarios.\u00a0<\/p>

    Review of Citation Managers Pros and Cons<\/b><\/h2>

    In order to help you choose, I will go over the pros and cons of all 3 programs with respect to the following categories\/features. It looks like a lot of features but they are just the essential ones that I think are most relevant for you.<\/p>