One of the suggestions that I read about in "How to be a Good Graduate Student," the topic from two posts ago, was to set up an online bibliography. This guide, written by computer scientists, suggested using BibTex but I'm not used to code and the format doesn't look very user friendly for me.
Since I was at work when I was trying to figure out what format to use I decided to ask one of my coworkers what he used. He's a recent graduate from UIUC's WaterCAMPWS and a very smart guy. My co worker, who I'll call Mr. N, recommended RefWorks as an online bibliography and it sounds exactly like what I was looking for.
See, BibTex doesn't integrate well with Microsoft Word but RefWorks is designed for Word. Sounds like a match made just for me because Word and I are best friends forever. Seriously. I would consider myself an expert on that program after all the formatting and trials I went through writing my master's thesis.
I'm even more excited about it after finding out my university has a copy of it for use. Yay!
Today's mission: take the articles I've read and enter them into my RefWorks account.
One issue you might run into is what you do when you (finally!) graduate and want to take your bibliography with you. You won't be able to get RefWorks from your school anymore.
ReplyDeleteIf I may, I'd like to suggest that Mendeley would be a better option as it's also designed for Word, but free and easy to use. You can check it out at http://mendeley.com and let me know if you have any questions.
(william.gunn@mendeley)
I spoke with the other PhD students in my lab over the weekend and they also recommended using Mendeley. They had never heard of RefWorks but thought Mendeley may be easier.
ReplyDeleteI didn't consider trying to take my bibliography with me but that is a very good point about RefWorks. Mendeley sounds like the better option - thanks Mr. Gunn!