Zotero: a guide for librarians, researchers, and educators Essay

Zotero is an open-source and free software management used in managing bibliographic data and related researched materials (Pucket 2011). Mendeley is a web program and a desktop used in sharing and managing research paper, collaborating online and discovering research data (Banbaj 2009). RefWorks is a commercial web-based software package used for reference management (Tung 2009). The three types of citations play an important role in bibliographic data management, researching on relevant materials used in making bibliographies, share and manage the online research data, and finally ensure proper reference management (Pollack, Cruess, Sternet, Sillitoe, Perou, Jeffrey, 2009). RefWorks provides databases of stored online references that allow easy access and update of information from any computer with internet connections. The software provides a better link of RefWork user’s account to journals that are electronically edited with institution’s library subscription. Providers of bibliographic databases have implemented the ability of directly exporting references to RefWorks (Hasjim 2013:pp.742-749). Mendeley comprises of a team of graduates, researchers, and developers from different academic institutions. It has become a famous website through different awards it has won, which include â€Å"European start-up 2009†, â€Å"bets society social innovation 2009† and â€Å"100 tech top media companies† (Sledz 2009: pp.1407-1408). The name ‘Zotero’ is derived from a verb Albanian which means ‘to master’ (Rimikis 2013: p.792). Zotero has the ability of converting ens style of proprietary EndNotes int o language style of citation. Citation is an important aspect in all academic writings. Majority of academic researchers has adopted the use of the three modules in ensuring proper management of references. In all types of research and scholarly writing, it is necessary to have source works documented. These works are used to underpin particular positions, concepts arguments and propositions with citations. They serve the following purposes; assist readers in relocating and identifying the source work, gives evidence that the position was researched well, and provides credit to the author of the presented theory or an original concept (McMurray 2011: pp.647-654). References Banbaji, A., & Beersheba, I. (2009). Mendeley whasiypwr halÊ ¼wmiy. Ê ¼Wr Yhwdah: Dbiyr :. Puckett, J. (2011). Zotero: a guide for librarians, researchers, and educators. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries. Tung, K. L., & Pan, Y. (2009). EndNote & RefWorks: lun wen yu wen xian xie zuo guan li (Chu ban. ed.). Tai bei shi: Wu nan. Source document