Slavic Literature Guide  Tags: slavic research_methods russian east_european literature  

RefWorks is a personal, portable citation management and formatting software. It allows you to:

--Export records directly from databases to Refworks

--Build a bibliography in any of the major styles

--Access that personal citation database/bibliography from anywhere—on campus, at home, or abroad—via the Web

--Capture bibliographic information directly from web pages

Here is a sample record imported into Refworks.  Please note the Discover button that will allow instant check of availability of full text and the library's holdings of this item.  Clicking on the highlighted title of the journal (in this case, "Metsenat i mir") instantly extracts and displays all the articles from this source contained in the bibliography.

The above record is shown in one of several display modes available in RefWorks. 

Here's a record in full view mode.

The software allows one to download large number of citations (hundreds or more at a time) and then instantly sort them by ten different criteria, such as author, date, etc.  The program offers a wide array of options to process the imported citations, including for example searching for duplicates, editing only selected fields of records, etc.

When working on a group project you can share a RefWorks account. The software does not limit the number of accounts you create. Every account can have two types of access: full and read-only.  You can save different projects in separate folders and selectively share the folders with your colleagues.

Citations can be imported directly into RefWorks from a variety of databases such as EBSCO's Academic Search, Web of Science, PsycInfo, MLA Bibliography, etc. There may be slight variations between databases in the exact export procedure. Items can also be added to your personal database manually, either by importing a text file, or by entering the citation into a template.

This is the menu of export options in an EBSCO database.  Note the variety of bibliographic software, besides RefWorks, compatible with the database.

With a click of a button bibliography can be created in any citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, or for a specific journal). It can be kept in any format you wish to create (HTML, RTF, Word. etc.).  RefWorks can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Word to automatically insert citations to articles in a wide variety of formats such as the APA, MLA, or Chicago styles, or the style required for a particular journal.

Another feature of the software, RefGrab-It,  works with the browser to capture and import bibliographic information from web pages to RefWorks. nNote: At this time RefGrab-It is not compatible with Netscape for Windows.  If an ISBN number, PubMed ID or DOI exists on the web page, RefGrab-It will automatically search various web resources for supplemental information relating to these identifiers.  RefWorks may also locate RSS feeds related to that web page.  When RefGrab-It is used on a web page, it automatically opens a "temporary results page" in a new window.  This allows for reviewing the information and additional sources before importing them.

This brief page highlights only some of the features of this very powerful bibliographic software.  For further information on using RefWorks go to:
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/refworks/

If you wish to compare RefWorks with other bibliographic management tools, such as

Reference Manager, Endnote, and QUOSA, refer to this side-by side comparison table prepared at Columbia University.

http://library.cpmc.columbia.edu/hsl/eres/documents/CMToolComparisonTableSorted.pdf

RefWorks and Mozilla Firefox

You may experience problems accessing Refworks when using Firefox as the browser.

To work around this problem: In  FireFox, look for a blue exclamation point icon in the lower left-hand side of your screen, just to the right of the “Lock” icon. Click the exclamation point icon and in the "Blocked Popups" window that appears, click "Unblock Site".