Papers include a reference section, or bibliography, or works cited page for several reasons:
In life sciences and medical research, many journals ask for a specific style. Unless someone asks you for a specific style, consistency is more important than choosing the right style. Pick a popular style like Vancouver and use a citation manager to do your heavy lifting (although its always a good idea to double check!).
AMA (American Medical Assocation) Style is used for citing medical research. It is the standard for journals published by the American Medical Association.
APA (American Psychological Association) Style is typically used in the social sciences and education.
Chicago Style is used for humanities (with notes and bibliography format) and for physical and social sciences (with author-date format).
MLA Style is used for humanities, especially for literary research.
Vancouver Style is used for medicine and sciences. It is maintained by the National Library of Medicine.
See the components of a data citation, examples, and data citation resources on our data citation page.
Citation managers help you organize and keep track of your references and generate bibliographies. Some also have plugins for in-paper citations, the ability to attach full text pdfs to citations, and tools to share your bibliographies with collaborators.
Citation Manager | Cost | Get it |
---|---|---|
EndNote Desktop (can sync with EndNote Online) |
Free for UMass Chan and UMMHC users. |
Download instructions for EndNote Desktop Software and support links |
EndNote Web/ Online/ Basic | Free | myendnoteweb.com |
RefWorks (Web-based) | Free for UMass Chan and UMMHC users. |
Create an account at refworks.com using your institutional email. |
Zotero (Desktop and Web-based) | Freemium (Free for up to 300MB of cloud storage. Pay for additional storage.) | zotero.org |
Mendeley (Desktop and Web-based) | Freemium (Free for up to 2GB of cloud storage. Pay for additional storage.) | mendeley.com |
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