A Better Way To Manage Your Research
Lori Spradley, MLIS, MA, Reference Librarian, and Nursing Liaison, LSUHSC Libraries
Editor's Note: This article is best viewed with full graphics by utilizing this link.
RefWorks is one of the most commonly used reference management and citation platforms for
written materials in colleges and universities. Founded in 2001, RefWorks provides
a web-based service that supports hundreds of databases. This online-based service
allows users to create collections of citations, add sources from various databases,
and store citations. Users can add citation formats, such as AMA and APA, to documents.
Faculty and students can also use RefWorks' peer-sharing capabilities; this allows
users to share bibliographic files with others within a group. Proquest has provided
two versions of research management tools to support public writing. They are Classic RefWorks and RefWorks (New). Classic, the older version of RefWorks, was created in 2016. Accounts created using
the older version of the Refworks link belong to classic RefWorks. If students and
faculty use this database at the beginning of their research, writers should continually
use the classic version throughout future writing. The RefWorks(New) links provide
a newer version with more capabilities and an updated interface.
Students and faculty can search, access, and store research materials from online
databases in any format. Refworks auto-completes reference data and retrieves full-text
articles to save time and ensure precise citations.
Users have the opportunity to bring together all of their research in one work area
to enable storage and the reuse of essential articles. RefWorks users benefit from
familiar media tools such as tagging and creating folders. Students and faculty can
use full-text searching and reduplication to access and organize references with ease.
A word processor integration function called Write-N-Cite enables users to insert
footnotes, in-text citations, and references from their RefWorks accounts into their
document. RefWorks(New) also allows users to drag and drop PDFs of articles into the
RefWorks system.
The Refworks(New) has a feature that allows researchers to work on multiple research
projects simultaneously while keeping them separate. Users working in any project
can share, add, delete, and modify the references and folders in the shared project.
One can also remove duplicate references from the shared project. Students and faculty
have the opportunity to organize, read, interpret and highlight full-text documents
individually. They can share with LSU Health Sciences Center members or any RefWorks
user in a collaborative setting.
For more information about access and the utilization of RefWorks, please view our
library guide on the subject.
