What are citation managers?

Citation managers are great tools for organizing your references and producing beautifully formatted bibliographies. The university and university libraries make these products available at no cost to current NU faculty, staff, and students.

NOTE: Many biology students are required to use EndNote. If you are completing an assignment in which use of a specific citation manager is required, please verify on the assignment and/or syllabus.

Citing your Sources

Check our pages on academic integrity and citations and bibliographies.

The Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) is a good resource for all aspects of paper writing, including citation and bibliography.  The Site Map is a good place to begin.

You can also find helpful information on citing in APA style on the APA website and blog:

Citing AI-generated content

A variety of guidelines are emerging on how to cite or credit the parts of your work generated by artificial intelligence and large language model tools. 

Northeastern offers an Insider's Guide for students (PDF) and an Overview and guide for instructors (PDF) on the responsible use of AI at the University.

Practices and standards for citing and crediting the contribution of AI in your work vary between style guides, so always consult your instructor, advisor, or editor to be sure of expectations for your academic work and research.

Getting Started with EndNote

View solutions to some of the most common questions and trouble spots here. 

You can also find the following information on our EndNote Research Guide:

Creating an EndNote Online Account

Exporting References from Library Databases

Exporting References from Websites

Troubleshooting Tip: Is EndNote asking for a License Key?

Journal Citation Reports

The established source for locating information on journal rankings and impact factors is Journal Citation Reportsaccessible through ISI Web of Science.

Journal Citation Reports® is a comprehensive and unique resource that allows you to evaluate and compare journals using citation data drawn from over 11,000 scholarly and technical journals from more than 3,300 publishers in over 80 countries. It is the only source of citation data on journals, and includes virtually all areas of science, technology, and social sciences. Journal Citation Reports can show you the:

  • Most frequently cited journals in a field
  • Highest impact journals in a field
  • Largest journals in a field

Citation and article counts are important indicators of how frequently current researchers are using individual journals. By tabulating and aggregating citation and article counts, JCR offers a unique perspective for journal evaluation and comparison.

You should not depend solely on citation data in your journal evaluations. Citation data are not meant to replace informed peer review. Careful attention should be paid to the many conditions that can influence citation rates such as language, journal history and format, publication schedule, and subject specialty.

The number of articles given for journals listed in JCR include primarily original research and review articles. Editorials, letters, news items, and meeting abstracts are usually not included in article counts because they are not generally cited. Journals published in non-English languages or using non-Roman alphabets may be less accessible to researchers worldwide, which can influence their citation patterns. This should be taken into account in any comparative journal citation analysis.