Skip to Main Content

Research Guides

Citation Management Software: Organizing References

A guide to the commonly used citation - or reference - management software available to the U-Idaho community.

Organizing References

Create a Collection and Sub-Collection

To create a collection:

  • Click New collection
  • Type collection name name hit Enter on your keyboard to save new collection

To create a sub-collection:

  • Right click the name of the original collection
  • Click New collection and follow the instructions above
Mendeley Collections

Create a Private Group to Share PDFs with Other Researchers

Mendeley allows you to share the full-text of PDFs with others by creating a private group. Please visit Mendeley's documentation page for more information.

Add References to a Collection or Sub-Collection

  • Click the checkbox next to the references you want to add to a collection or sub-collection
  • Navigate to the Action Panel
  • Click Organize 
  • Click Add to Collection
  • Choose the collection or sub-collection
  • Click Add
Mendeley Add to Collection

Attach a PDF to a Reference

  • Click the reference you want to add the PDF too
  • Two options:
    • Option 1: Click Get PDF
    • Option 2: Click Files and manually add the PDF
Mendeley Get PDF

Read and Annotate PDFs

  • Click the reference you want to read or annotate
  • Click Read
  • Annotate using various tools such as the highlight tool and the sticky note tool
    • Right click on a highlight to add it to your Mendeley Notebook

All sticky notes appear in the Annotation tab within the reference.

Mendeley Annotation
 
Mendeley Notebook

The Mendeley Notebook allows you to take notes and collect annotations from the PDF's you've highlighted while using Mendeley Reference Manager. You can create as many notebook pages as you want.

  • Click Notebook
  • Click New page
  • Add a title and start typing
    • To add a highlight from a PDF to a Mendeley Notebook page, simply right click the highlight and select the notebook page where you'd like to save it

Please visit Mendeley's documentation page for more information on reading and annotating PDFs.