Research Introduction

Linkedin Learning collection about citations and APA

Use ZoteroBib! 

You can cite by URL or DOI, even do manual entry if that's your jam, and ZoteroBib will create your bibliography for you. 

It can even save a copy of the bibliography that you create using your browser's local storage and you can create a link to your bibliography to share across devices or groups. 

If there is only one tool that you could use to save yourself time, worry, and release you from the nightmare that is writing citations, I would recommend Zotero. 

I know that adding something that you have to download and use can feel like a lot to ask. It really only takes a small amount of time to set up and, depending on how familiar you are with APA, there is a learning curve for ensuring that you get a perfect citation with it. But the bonus of using it are so, so good. 

Anything you find - an article on a database, a website, a book on amazon, a patent, literally ANYTHING can be saved through Zotero.

• It saves the URL so you can always get back to where you originally found it
• If there's a PDF it will automatically download and save it for you (and that PDF is saved in Zotero attached to the record for the item so there's no digging through your downloads folder or where you might have saved it to try to find it!) 
• It will download as much citation information as it can access - for most article that's everything AND the abstract
• It lets you create folders and subfolders if you like that sort of thing
• It lets you keyword search in everything you've saved if you instead prefer to work with a giant list of stuff!
• Add-ons! You can add it to other programs - Word or whatever word processor you like to use, even LaTeX or EndNote! 

Whether you're starting from scratch or need a bit of help with using Zotero, this fantastic interactive tutorial will walk you through everything you need to know.