5 Best Online Services for Keeping Track of Your References
Both regular students and professional writers providing phd writing services have to manage hundreds of PhD references during the thesis writing process. Manually keeping track of all these sources can be extremely tiresome and ineffective.
We have found the 5 best online services that will optimise your reference management and boost your productivity as a result.
1. Mendeley
This award-winning software product is one of the most popular choices in the academic domain due to its freemium business model and good brand recognition. There are multiple versions of the product, including the recently added Mendeley Reference Manager and Mendeley Cite.
This PhD reference tool is fully compatible with Microsoft Office as well as mobile apps for all platforms, which provides a seamless research experience.
| Pros | Cons |
| – Freemium model – Easy to use – Good integration with all platforms | – Servers are not always stable – Information from websites is not always extracted properly |
2. EasyBib
EasyBib is another freemium product that allows you to create citations for your PhD or scan your paper for grammar errors and plagiarism using embedded tools. The basic referencing and citation-saving functionality is embedded in the basic version, which is sufficient for most students.
Easybib has also introduced an AI writing assistant to help you easily generate PhD references, saving you heaps of time.
| Pros | Cons |
| – Freemium model – Intuitive interface – Good integration with popular browsers | – Free version shows you distracting ads and videos |
3. EndNote
EndNote is another powerful alternative to Mendeley that can be used for free by postgraduate students using their university credentials. It has several powerful features, including embedded search tools for PubMed and other specialised databases as well as full integration with Microsoft Office.
One of the unique elements of this software is its capability to export citations in multiple formats and to support the access of up to 14 platform users to the same citation list via cloud functionality. Making EndNote an invaluable tool for group projects and writing co-authored PhD research papers.
| Pros | Cons |
| – Free for university students – Good synchronisation across multiple platforms – Compatible with all popular browsers and text editing software | – Non-online desktop versions are rather expensive even with student discounts – All future updates are also paid – The learning curve is quite steep due to the complex software interface |
4. Zotero
Zotero is another long-term player in the citation software market, dating back to 2006. Right from its start, it has been 100% free and open-source. At the same time, it offers substantial functionality to be used for making high-quality bibliographies. Making it a popular choice among both new researchers and their more experienced colleagues.
| Pros | Cons |
| – 100% free – A wide variety of import and export formats – Supports more than 30 languages and had a well-developed online community | – No ‘official’ customer support – Offers no embedded PDF editing tools – Has no native mobile apps |
5. RefWorks
With 20+ years of commercial success to date, RefWorks may represent the oldest and most powerful product of the five offerings analysed in this list. It is extremely easy to use and is fully cloud-based. However, it lacks some features present in its digital-native competitors, such as official mobile apps.
If you want to give it a try before you buy, they do offer a free trial to test out how well this tool helps with your PhD referencing.
| Pros | Cons |
| – Has access to many quality databases – Excellent support – Easy-to-use interface | – Costs from $70 per year – No specialised mobile apps – May be unstable at times |
Many clients ask our professional writers whether they should use any specific software for their PhD thesis writing. While the aforementioned pros and cons may determine your short-term choices due to your operating costs, preferences or desired product features, it is generally a matter of love and hate.
Our experts have successfully provided phd thesis writing services for years, praised by RefWorks, while others enjoy the features of its digital-native competitors. If you have the time, we would advise you to install several products as trial versions and work with each of them for 1-2 days. This will allow you to select the best tool for your specific preferences, which will pay off in the future over the course of your PhD project.