Citation Management Software
Learn how a citation management tool can make your research life easier.
What is a citation manager?
A citation manager is a piece of software that helps you collect and organize your research and create bibliographies and in-text citations. Citation managers generally offer a range of citation styles and features to choose from.
Which citation managers does the library support?
The Northeastern library supports EndNote, Mendeley, RefWorks and Zotero. We also support the use of BibTeX and LaTeX.
Which citation manager should I use?
While citation managers generally have the same basic functions, each one offers some specific features.
Our citation manager comparison chart (below) can help you identify the features that will work best for you. See also our tutorial on choosing a citation manager.
- Comparison chart for citation management softwareCompares EndNote 20, RefWorks, Zotero, and Mendeley Desktop.
Journal Citation Reports
The established source for locating information on journal rankings and impact factors is Journal Citation Reports, accessible 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.
- Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate) This link opens in a new windowJCR is a widely used source of citation data, used to compare and evaluate scholarly journals. For example, the most well-known indicator in the JCR is the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). This measure provides a ratio of citations to a journal in a given year to the citable items in the prior two years. 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
Includes virtually all areas of science, technology, and social sciences. Covers 1997-present.
Using JCR Wisely
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.