Mendeley is a free desktop and web program that allows you to manage and share content you find across the web. As you search across journals, databases, and websites you can easily save citations and files to your library. You can also join groups based on topics, research areas, or create your own to share content and annotations. Through this program you can create bibliographies in many different styles, such as APA, Chicago, MLA, and much more. Mendeley syncs your desktop and web program so that you can have your content where you need it.
Make the most of Mendeley by using these tools:
Groups—Mendeley allows users to collaborate with your colleagues, through three types of groups: private, invite-only, and public where in each you can share content and notes.
Mendeley Word Plug-In—Using the desktop program you can install a word plug-in. This will allow you to easily insert in-text citations and bibliographies into your papers.
"Suggest Tab"—On the web program there is a tab where Mendeley will make suggestions to other articles based on the items currently in your library, the research interests you list on your profile, and those that are popular in your discipline.
Zotero is a free Firefox add-on. This was originally developed for researchers who gather large amounts of content from the web. You can easily capture citations from websites, databases, YouTube, and more. You can easily create bibliographies in hundreds of different styles including APA, MLA, Chicago, ACS, and more. Zotero saves files to your hard drive and you can sync that with an online backup.
Make the most of Zotero by using these tools:
Zotero Styles: Zotero ships with several popular citation styles for creating citation and bibliographies, and over 2000 additional styles can be found in the Zotero Style Repository. All these styles are written in the Citation Style Language (CSL), a format also supported by Mendeley and Papers.
Zotero Word Plug-In: is plug-in that you need to install on your own computer. This is what allows Zotero to connect with your Microsoft Word documents and format in-text citations within your papers.
Zotero Groups: is a Zotero feature that provides a quick and easy way to share your Zotero database or specific folders with other people.