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Citations + Writing

MGH IHP's general guide to citations and writing

Mendeley

Mendeley Logo with white text on a red background

A popular option for citation management is Mendeley, a free program that organizes both your references and your PDFs, with some social media capabilities.

Among other features, Mendeley has a plug-in for inserting citations into your papers, will create formatted bibliographies, and allows you to annotate and share your PDFs. It will sync all of your citations and annotated PDFs across the web and your devices. It even has a mobile app for PDF reading and annotation.

Quick Set-Up Instructions

  1. Create your Mendeley account. You are not restricted to your IHP email and may use whichever email address you prefer.
  2. Set up your profile with as much or as little information as you would like. The Mendeley profile adds a social media facet to your account. You can connect with other people doing research in your field, for instance.
  3. Once you have reached your dashboard, you can download the desktop version of Mendeley. Install this program to easily import your PDFs, from which Mendeley will extract the bibliographic data necessary to generate references.

The Mendeley Resource Center has help guides and video tutorials.

For in-person assistance, please request an appointment with a librarian.