12 Best Citation Manager Tools You Must Try

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Are you tired of juggling the citation of references while composing your research papers? Best citation managers can be a lifesaver in managing the references and citations, enabling you to focus on crafting high-quality content.

This guide will help you find the best citation managers and explain how they can streamline your writing process. With these research tools, you can enhance your writing and efficiently compose papers, summaries, and articles with AI.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if there were an AI writing tool capable of enhancing your writing and helping you write efficient papers, summaries, and articles? Unriddle's AI writing tool can do just that. Let’s dive into the best citation managers and explore how they can transform your writing process.

What Is A Citation Manager?

Citation managers are like digital personal librarians, benefiting all researchers. They eliminate the tedium of creating and organizing references and citations and can even auto-generate citations in various formats.

These tools help organize the references one collects, manage bibliographies, import references from varied sources, and cite correctly in the text and reference list. With a single click, citation managers can conjure bibliographies or lists of references for your work.

What Are the Three Essential Parts of Citation Managers?

The citation manager is composed of three main parts that work together harmoniously.

The first part is a database that serves as a repository for all references that a researcher collects.

The second part is the browser plugins that the citation managers offer. These plugins facilitate capturing citation information from sources efficiently and quickly.

The third part of a citation manager is the feature that allows researchers to effortlessly enter their citations into their work.

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What Is The Use Of Citation Manager?

1. Importing Citations

Citations for journal articles, books, and other sources can be easily imported directly from bibliographic databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, the library catalog, and various web pages. This feature allows researchers to collect and organize sources for their work efficiently.

2. Manual Input and Editing

Citation information can be manually entered and edited within citation managers. Users can also organize and manage their citations using folders, allowing for better categorization and easy access to relevant sources when needed.

Citation managers enable users to share citations with others, making them a valuable tool for collaborative or group work. In some cases, multiple users can edit citations, streamlining the working process together on research projects.

4. Automatic Generation of Citations

One of the most useful features of a citation manager is the ability to automatically generate bibliographies, endnotes, footnotes, or in-text citations. While this feature is incredibly convenient, it's essential to double-check for accuracy to ensure that the generated citations are correct and formatted properly.

5. Exporting Citations

Citation managers often allow users to export citations from one management tool to another. This functionality proves particularly useful when researchers switch between citation tools, offering a seamless transition and a time-saving feature when switching platforms.

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Unriddle.AI allows you to read faster and write better. Quickly find info in documents, simplify complex topics, take notes, and write with the power of AI. Unriddle is trusted by thousands of researchers and students, from the classroom to the boardroom. Unriddle generates an AI assistant on top of any document so you can quickly find, summarize, and understand info.

No more endless skimming. Unriddle.AI Understands the meaning behind your writing and automatically links you to relevant things you’ve read and written about. Highlight text and Unriddle will show you the most relevant sources from your library using AI. Never lose a citation again.

Generate text with AI autocomplete to improve and expand your writing, with suggestions based on the context of your work. Step into a collaborative workspace where everyone can contribute and chat with the same documentation in real time and much more.

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12 Best Citation Manager Tools You Must Try

1. Unriddle.AI

Unriddle.AI Allows you to read faster and write better with the power of AI. It generates an AI assistant on top of any document, providing quick access to relevant information, summarization capabilities, and automated linking to past readings.

Pros

Read faster and write better

AI assistant for document understanding

Collaborative workspace

Cons

Requires desktop/laptop application

Limited free cloud storage

Pricing

Not mentioned

2. Zotero

Zotero is research assistant software that organizes research, generates bibliographies, and provides access to 9000+ citation styles. It also helps users stay in sync with research work and synchronizes data across devices.

Pros

Free to use

Collaborative group libraries

Synchronizes data across devices

Cons

Requires desktop/laptop application

Limited free cloud storage

Pricing

Free

3. Qiqqa

Qiqqa is a free research and reference manager that offers PDF search, annotation, and bibliography creation. It also allows literature analysis. However, it has some bugs and lacks cloud functionality.

Pros

Free and open-sourced

Libraries are useful

Cons

Regular bugs

Weak duplicate finder

Pricing

Free, Premium at $6.67, and Premium+ at $41.67

4. Mendeley

Mendeley helps manage and share academic knowledge with free academic software for organizing research papers and generating bibliographies. It offers 1GB of free online storage and cross-platform compatibility.

Pros

Slick interface

Available on various platforms

Search tools based on library contents

Cons:

Issues with some citation types

Lacks Google Docs support

Pricing

Free

5. MyBib

MyBib is a free citation tool with over 9,000 citation styles for accurate citations. It offers automation and collaboration tools but has some citation generation flaws.

Pros

Free service

Citation export options

Cons

Flaws in citation generation

Lacks support for specific source types

Pricing

Free

6. JabRef

JabRef is an open-source bibliography reference manager using BibTeX. It enables the management of BibTeX files with features like PDF linking but lacks collaboration tools.

Pros

Straightforward to use

Enables linking PDF files

Cons

Difficult to find answers to problems

Bibliography issues with certain LaTeX packages

Pricing

Free

7. Citationsy

Citationsy is a cloud platform for managing citation data with export options in various styles. It supports team collaboration but has a paid subscription model.

Pros

Collaboration tools

Export in 9000+ styles

Cons

Subscription-based

Steep learning curve

Pricing

Monthly $9.99/month, for students $4.99/month

8. Paperpile

Paperpile offers reference management with cross-platform syncing and citation capabilities in Google Docs and Word. It has an easy-to-use interface but lacks advanced search features.

Pros

Cross-platform syncing

Clean interface

Cons

Lack of advanced search

Organizational issues

Pricing

Academic plan at $2.99/month, Business plan at $9.99/month

9. Turnitin

Turnitin helps detect plagiarism and saves time by cross-referencing submissions. However, it lacks a comprehensive database and can be expensive for some users.

Pros

Saves time and deters plagiarism

Cons

Lacks extensive databases

Expensive for some users

Pricing

$3/student annually

10. iThenticate

iThenticate is an online plagiarism checker by Turnitin catering to researchers, institutions, and publishers with detailed plagiarism summaries. It supports large file scanning but has a cost and limited services.

Pros

Acceptable plagiarism detection

Supports large files

Cons

Costly

Limited services

Pricing

Single at $125, Multiple at $300

11. Citavi

Citavi is a reference-managing tool that assists with research, organization, and documentation. It has a competent support team but a starting price of USD $519.00 per year.

Pros

Competent support team

User-friendly interface

Cons

Missing some features

Pricing

Starting at USD $519.00 per year

12. Cite This For Me

Cite This For Me is a citation tool that provides various citation styles and a user-friendly experience. It offers plagiarism and grammar checkers but may have occasional speed issues.

Pros

Easy and accurate citings

Variety of citation styles

Cons

Occasional slow performance

Pricing

Free

Complete Step-by-Step Guide On How To Use Unriddle's AI Research Tool

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use Unriddle. I’ve also copied it below :)

From here, it's pretty simple.

Unriddle helps you read, write and learn faster.

Interact with documents via AI so you can quickly find and understand info.

Then start writing in a new Note and Unriddle will show you relevant content from your library as you type.

Get started by uploading a document.

Or read on for the full rundown.

Interact with documents

When you upload a document, Unriddle generates an AI assistant on top of this data.

Click 'New' in the right sidebar and then select 'Upload' to get started.

Use this assistant to answer specific questions about the text, summarize content and simplify jargon.

The trick is to be super clear about what you want.

If you're summarizing a research paper, for example, instead of saying “Summarize” or “Summarize this research paper”, say something like “Explain this research paper to me in simple terms. What method did the researchers use? What did they find? Why does it matter?”.

The second prompt will produce a much better overview of the paper because we're giving the AI more hints about what we want.

Automatic relations

Unriddle grasps the context behind each Note and Document in your library and automatically links them based on meaning.

Let's say you have a collection of nuclear physics papers in your library.

When you start writing a note about The Manhattan Project, simply mentioning "The Manhattan Project" will prompt Unriddle to find the connection between this note and the nuclear physics papers.

Even if you didn't explicitly mention the research papers, Unriddle's knowledge of Oppenheimer, his work, and the significant relevance of these papers means it understands the connection and automatically links them together.

In short, Unriddle shows you relevant content from your library at the exact moment you need it, even if you haven't explicitly mentioned it.

Citing your sources

Writing is hard when you have a ton of sources to track.

So we made it easy.

Highlight some text, click ‘Cite’ and you’ll see items from your library that contain information related to the selection of text you just highlighted as determined by our AI.

When you select an item Unriddle inserts a link into highlighted text that, when clicked, takes you to the referenced item.

Writing with AI

Click ‘New’ in the sidebar and hit ‘Note’ to open up a new note.

Here you’ll find all the text formatting options you’re used to and more.

Type ‘++’ to generate text based on the context of what’s already written.

Highlight text and click ‘Ask AI’ to open up the AI menu where you’ll find options to improve, expand, summarize and explain.

You can type custom prompts too!

Finally, you can open any note in a pane on the right side of the screen while interacting with documents. Just click the orange pencil icon at the top of the chat window.

Chat Settings

Adjust the model, temperature and response length in the Setting sidebar.

Click the cog icon in the top right corner of the screen and look for "Chat Settings".

These apply across all documents but you can easily flip between them regardless of settings at the time of upload.

Model: the machine learning model used to generate responses.

Temperature: the amount of creative license you give to the AI.

Max length: the maximum number of words generated in a response.

Got feedback or questions? Send us an email and we'll get back to you within a day.

— Naveed

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Advantages Of Using A Citation Manager Tool

1. Efficient Organization

A citation manager is like your personal librarian, ensuring all your references are neatly organized in one spot. It can handle all sources, from journal articles to conference papers. No more hunting through piles of papers to find that one specific reference!

2. Time-Saving

Formatting citations can consume hours and leave you frustrated with endless errors. A citation manager automates the process, saving you time and guaranteeing that your citations are consistently styled – no more manual headaches.

3. Easy Citation Generation

Imagine whipping up citations effortlessly while writing your academic papers. A citation manager integrates seamlessly with word processors, letting you cite and create bibliographies effortlessly.

4. Avoiding Plagiarism

Staying on the right side of academic integrity just got much easier with a citation manager. Accurately attributing others' work and ideas is a breeze, thanks to this trusty tool.

5. Collaboration

Working on group projects? Collaborating with others? The citation manager is your best friend here. It simplifies the sharing and syncing of references, making teamwork smooth.

6. Import and Export Functionality

Need to import references from databases, websites, or PDFs? No problem! Citation managers have you covered. Plus, exporting references in different formats is a breeze, ensuring smooth transitions between tools.

7. Metadata Retrieval

Why waste time entering citation details manually when a citation manager can do it for you? Save yourself the data entry hassle and let the tool automatically extract and populate citation information from online databases.

8. Annotating and Organizing PDFs

Annotating PDFs and attaching notes to specific references using a citation manager can make your research organization more sophisticated. This feature boosts your comprehension and keeps your research organized.

9. Backup and Synchronization

Ever lost references or had difficulty accessing them on different devices? Never again! Most citation managers offer cloud-based storage and synchronization, ensuring your references are securely backed up and available wherever you go.

Read Faster & Write Better With Unriddle for Free Today

Unriddle.AI is a game-changer for researchers and students, offering an AI-powered platform that boosts your productivity and efficiency. This innovative tool allows you to read faster, write better, and simplify complex topics easily. With Unriddle, skimming through endless documents becomes a thing of the past. The AI assistant helps you quickly find, summarize, and understand information, making your research process smoother and more effective.

Unriddle.AI doesn't just stop at simplifying content - it also helps you link your current writing to relevant past work seamlessly. By recognizing the meaning behind your writing, Unriddle can automatically connect you to related topics you've explored before. This feature is handy for building on your existing knowledge and ensuring your work is consistent and well-researched.

Effortless Organization of Sources and Citations

Unriddle helps you organize your sources and citations effortlessly. You can easily access the most relevant sources from your library by utilizing AI to highlight text. Say goodbye to the hassle of losing track of citations and struggling to align references correctly.

Collaborative Workspace for Real-Time Teamwork

Unriddle provides a collaborative workspace where multiple users can contribute and chat in real-time while working on the same document. This fosters teamwork and ensures everyone stays on the same page, boosting productivity with real-time discussions and edits directly within your research document.

AI-Autocomplete for Enhanced Writing

Unriddle features an AI-autocomplete tool that generates text suggestions based on your work's context. This assists in refining and expanding your writing, ensuring comprehensive and well-researched content. Think of it as having a writing assistant offering valuable suggestions to enhance your work.

Ready to supercharge your research and writing process? Give Unriddle a try and experience these benefits firsthand. Trusted by thousands of researchers and students globally, Unriddle simplifies research tasks, helping you read faster, write better, and unlock your full potential.