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Reference Management Tools for Academic Writing

A Comprehensive Guide for EndNote, Mendeley and Zotero

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Install Mendeley MS Word Plugin

Follow the steps below to install the MS Word Plugin for Mendeley which allows you to insert In-text citations and bibliographies directly to the research paper from Mendeley .

  1. Click on Tools on your Mendeley Desktop.
  2. Select Install MS Word Plugin.
  3. The plugin will be shown under the References tab in MS Word.

Click to see steps in screenshots

Insert In-text Citations and Create Bibliographies

Follow the below steps to insert in-text citations and generate end of paper reference list in Word document.

  1. In your Word document, place the cursor on the point that you would like to insert an in-text citation.
  2. Click on Insert or Edit Citation (or Insert Citation for Windows users).
  3. Select Go To Mendeley.
  4. Select one or more references you would like to insert.
  5. Click on Cite.
  6. Reference list will not be generated automatically. Place your cursor at the end of your document and click Insert Bibliography to generate it.
  7. Select relevant citation style as needed.

Click to see steps in screenshots

Edit In-text Citations

Follow the steps below to edit an in-text citation:

  1. Click on the in-text citation you would like to edit.
  2. Click on Insert or Edit Citation
    (or Edit Citation for Windows users).
  3. Add more references here for multiple citations.  
    Please click on the selected citation to display editing functions for step 4 and 5.
  4. Add page information here (if needed).
  5. Check the box Suppress Author to remove the author name from the in-text citation (if needed).

Click to see steps in screenshots

Convert Mendeley Field Codes into Plain Text

After inserting citations and references using Mendeley, your Word document contains many field codes, which llnk all the in-text citations and reference list to each other and also to your Mendeley Library.

You are recommended to convert the Word document to plain text to avoid conflicts and loss of citations. This should be done only when you have finished adding all the in-text citations and reference to your paper.

You can convert your document to plain text (without the Mendeley fields) by the following steps:

  1. Save your original document (with field codes) in case further amendment is needed.
  2. Mendeley coding (the part highlighted in grey) can be found at both in-text citation and the reference list.
  3. Click on Export as.
  4. Select Without Mendeley Fields. A plain text document will then be created.

Click to see steps in screenshots


Creative Commons License

Except where otherwise noted, the content of this guide is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.