What is a citation management tool?
Citation management tools allow you to retrieve, store, organize, take notes on, and generate citations from all your information sources like articles, standards, and books.
What citation management tools are recommended?
CU Boulder Librarians use Zotero and Mendeley, and we can help you learn to use these tools. Ask a Librarian for citation management help!
Zotero is a free, open source web-based citation management tool that allows you to collaborate with others and works well with a variety of file formats (e.g. PDFs, HTML files, JPGs). Self-guided instructions in the form of tutorials, FAQ, and help are available.
Mendeley is a free citation management tool that works very well with PDFs and allows you to collaborate with others. Self-guided instructions in the form of tutorials, FAQ, and help are available.
Zotero integrates increasingly well with LaTeX.
If you use Overleaf, it has integrated support for connecting Zotero.
Other LaTeX tools can be connected as well, with a bit more configuration.
These are some of the most common citation styles used in physics. Many journals use their own citation style, so if you don't see your style, try searching the Internet by the journal's name and the words, "author guidelines." The related Citations Styles guide also has resources for the most common citation styles.
Scientific Citation Styles
Scientific Style and Format by 