Microsoft Word is a great tool for formatting text, but what if you want to insert a chemistry formula in your Word document?. You can type all types of Chemical reaction in word by going into Insert-> Equation. Whoever has written chemical equation by this way knows how painful it is. But don’t worry you have come to right place. Here you will learn all the shortcuts, tips and tricks… Read More »Ms Word Tutorial on How to type chemical reaction in Word: Chemical formula, Reaction arrows and text above and below arrow
Greek alphabets and science The Greek alphabet or Greek letters are widely in variety of fields of science and engineering to demote various constants, values and phenomenon/particle (alpha decay, beta decay, etc.). From the entire list of Greek alphabets, you will not find any alphabets which are not used in science and mathematics. Letters including and many more are used to denote a whole range of mathematical constant and phenomenon… Read More »List of Greek alphabet: Shortcut for typing Greek letters in Ms Word
List of Greek alphabet: Shortcut for typing Greek letters in Ms Word
Subscript and superscript are an integral part of any scientific manuscript. Many of the equations in science, mathematics and engineering contain subscripts and superscript. Chemical reaction also requires subscript and superscripts. Three different ways to write subscript and superscript in Ms Word. Graphical User Interface (GUI) Keyboard shortcut Math Auto-correct (Fastest way) 1) Using GUI This method is simple and intuitive. If you are new to Microsoft Word, this is… Read More »Ms Word shortcut for Subscript and Superscript
Ms Word shortcut for Subscript and Superscript
Chem4Word is the best and free add-in for drawing chemical structure in Word. It is easy to use, simple and intuitive.
Draw chemical structure of any molecule using this free Ms Word add-in/plugin.
References are an integral part of well-researched document. However, inserting reference in a manuscript created in MS Word can be a nightmare. If you are those who have similar nightmare, then you have come at the right place. Here you will learn how to automate complete process of referencing using free reference management software.
We can divide process of referencing into following minor tasks
- Importing fields like title, author, journal/site and many other things.
- Then referring them at an appropriate place in the document.
- Creating bibliography
As per the study, average researcher spend up to 7-10 hours of time inserting, updating and changing references in journal paper. For thesis or dissertation this time adds up to 2-3 days.
This time could be greatly reduced to less than an hour if done smartly.
This is a place where, reference manager or reference management software comes into picture. In this blog you will know how to automate complete process of referencing right from importing reference fields into Ms Word to making bibliography.
Why use reference manager over Ms Word built-in feature?
Ms Word has some build-in feature to import, manage and make bibliography which makes some of the adding reference little easy. But this is just the half way. However, a dedicated reference manager like Refworks, Mendeley, Endnore, Citavi, Zotero, Mendeley etc. takes automation to the next level. Some of them are free too.
So which one is the best reference manager?
After a lot of research & comparing various reference managers I finally narrowed down to Mendeley and have been using since then and never looked at any other reference manager.
Mendeley: Best free reference software that automates every step of referencing and citation
Mendeley is free and one of the referencing manager that helps you organize research, collaborate online and discover new research. One can sign up for a Mendeley account online and install the Mendeley Desktop Tool in your computer for free. Mendeley also have a plugin for browsers like Chrome etc, to import references from websites like science direct, Scopus, google scholar, Elsevier, etc.
Import reference automatically
Importing from file: You can import papers into Mendeley library from your hard drive by simply dragging and dropping files. After adding files, Mendeley will automatically extract relevant fields like paper title, authors, journal name, volume number, issue etc from paper. You just can sit and relax while Mendeley does all this laborious task automatically.
1-click import from web: You can also import reference list from other reference managers or by searching various web databases for papers through Mendeley Literature Search or simply from your browser. Mendeley desktop will display a PDF icon next to the paper if the full text is available. You can sync your libraries to the cloud to access them anywhere.
Other reference managers: You can also import reference into Mendeley from BibTeX, XML, RIS and Zotero
Search within reference text
With so many references to write text from, many times you write something but while referring want to confirm the exact source of information. Mendeley has a feature that by pressing “Ctrl”+m, inside Ms Word, pop-up will open where you can search for paper title, author, journal name etc and Mendeley will automatically populate reference for you to select. However when you require to search specific text inside document available locally then again Mendeley Desktop can come to rescue. It provides a centralized place where you can search text inside your references.
Cite reference inside text without even touching mouse
Citing reference in text is very simple with Mendeley. Just press “Ctrl”+m at the place where you need to refer, a pop up will open, where you can type author name, paper title, journal name or other fields of reference. Mendeley will automatically search and highlight the reference based on your input. After selecting the required reference, press enter and you are done. If your reference are numbered in text then Mendeley will take care of complete numbering. These reference numbering will be updated automatically whenever you add or delete any new reference in between. Complete process of referring could be completed without leaving keyboard. Believe me, this will saves lot of time and effort.
See Mendeley in Action
Create Bibliography / References with 1 click
With Mendeley you can generate references and bibliography with just one click. Be it apa citation, mla citation, IEEE or any other styles. Mendeley has lots of formats for bibliography, you name it and it will be there.
Conclusion
Mendeley is a versatile and complete reference manager available for free. It automates all the laborious task from importing reference to making bibliography. There are many other reference manager with similar feature but most of them are not free. The one which are free are not as smart and user friendly as Mendeley. So from the next time when you start writing some content in Ms Word that requires you to refer, give Mendeley a try. I bet you will never regret using it.
Free & best reference management software to tracking references, citation tool & auto generate reference for Ms Word [2021]
Greek Alphabets / Greek Letters: Greek alphabet only has 24 letters compared to the Latin based script that uses 26. However, like Latin, Greek alphabet has both uppercase and lowercase versions for all of them. There is hardly any Greek alphabets which are not used in mathematics, science and engineering. Greek alphabet or Greek letters are used to demote various constants, values and phenomenon/particle (alpha decay, beta decay, etc.). List… Read More »List of Greek alphabet: Name of each Greek alphabets and its symbol
List of Greek alphabet: Name of each Greek alphabets and its symbol
Writing literature review is one of the important step of thesis or dissertation or paper. Process of writing literature review starts right from reading literature. I assume that you already know the topic on which you want to write literature survey. It starts with taking notes of important part/points from each literature. Then connecting literature survey to form a seamless story (yes Story), here story means connecting key points of… Read More »Best Advice To Literature Survey