IS228

Easy referencing with RefWorks

2013-2014

Aims of the Session

RefWorks is a web based reference manager, which enables you to store, retrieve and format your references from computers anywhere on the internet. This coursewill enable you to:

  • Create your own database in RefWorks
  • Save book and journal references into your database
  • Organise your references into folders
  • Create citation lists from references in your database
  • Reformat your documents in different journal citation styles.
  • Directly add references from your database to documents as you write
Contents
  1. Basics of citation and referencing
  2. AboutRefWorks
  3. What is RefWorks?
  4. Locating RefWorks
  5. Creating your personal account
  6. Online help tutorials

3Puttingreferences into your account

3.1Importing from online resources

3.2Searching from within Refworks

3.3Typing in new references

3.4References to web pages

4Organising your references into folders

5Creating lists of formatted references

6Inserting references in your documents
6.1 Inserting references by pasting

6.2 Inserting references with Write’N’Cite

6.3 Adding page numbers to references

7Other information

1. Basics of citation and referencing

When researching your subject it is vital that you maintain an accurate record of any sources you may have consulted and cited in your work. This ensures ethical use of the work in:

  • Acknowledging the original author
  • Enabling the item to be traced by others - and also
  • Providing evidence of the scope and depth of your research.

References have to be cited in a format which provides sufficient information for any future reader to trace the works you have used. There are a large number of official styles for this, created by learned societies, universities or publishers. Your tutor or supervisor can advise you on what citation style your department requires.

There is another course, IS226 Introduction to Referencing, Citing & Structuring Bibliographies, which gives a general introduction to these issues, and you may wish to sign up for it.

2.About RefWorks

2.1 What is RefWorks?

RefWorks is an online bibliographic management system, which enables you to capture, save and organise references into your own personal database. It requires no installation, but works in a web browser on any computer with an internet connection. It enables you to:

  • Capture and save references generated form online databases
  • Automatically generate a bibliography in your document
  • Access a range of citation styles
  • Insert citations directly into your research (i.e. word document)

2.2 Locating RefWorks

Here is how to access RefWorks from the Library home page. N.B. on the public PCs, use the Firefox browser, which runs RefWorks more reliably than Internet Explorer 9.

  1. Scroll down to Search our collections under the large graphic
  2. Click on the E-resources A-Zlinkbelow the search bar
  3. Under “Electronic Resources by Type” click Study tools
  4. Click onRefWorks, and on the next page click the direct link

2.3 Creating your personal account

You will need to create a personal account in order to set up your own database in RefWorks.

From the RefWorks login page: click on ‘Sign up for an individual account’

  1. Enter your email address
  2. Retype your email address
  3. Choose and enter a login name and password. NB – you cannot use just your first name, as nearly all names have already been used.
  4. Retype the password
  5. Click on “Next”
  6. This time you do enter your real name
  7. Answer a couple of easy questions
  8. Enter the security code displayed, and click ‘Create account’.

Exercise : Use the steps above to create your own account

2.4 Online help tutorials

When you first create your account, you will be invited to view the online tutorials, and you can return to them at any time in RefWorks by going to the Help menu and selecting Tutorial .

This takes you to the RefWorks YouTube channel, with playlists of short video tutorials which demonstrate on the screen, click by click, how to carry out all the RefWorks functions, with voice commentary. You can replay these whenever you need to be reminded how to do something.

3 Putting references into your RefWorks account

3.1 Importing from online resources

After running a search in any of our online database services, it is easy to select relevant references and import them into RefWorks. In this section there are detailed instructions of how to do this for a sample of our services, which illustrate how it works.

Importing results from LibrarySearch

The new LibrarySearch service includes an easy way to send selected search results to your RefWorks account. This works for both books (printed or e-books) in the College Library, and journal references in the databases to which we subscribe.

  1. On the Library home page, click “LibrarySearch” in the left hand panel.
  2. Enter a search term in the search bar to get some results.
  3. Because LibrarySearch searches papers in journals as well as books, you may get a lot of results. You can use the options in the left hand panel to refine your search. For example, click “Available in RHUL Library” to reduce it to the printed books in the Library.
  4. Under any item you would like to save, click on “Details”.
  5. Details open in a panel, and at the far right there is a “Send to” box. Click the down arrow, and select Refworks.
  6. If a pop-up blocker pops up, click on it and “allow”, according to your browser.
  7. If not already logged in,log in to your RefWorks account when prompted.
  8. The Import References panel opens in RefWorks, and the saved item is imported into your Last imported folder.

How to import references from Web of Science

  1. Go to Web of Science, from the E-resources list under W, or any departmental E-resources page, and perform a search.
  2. In the results list, select the references you want to keep by clicking in the little box to the left of the title.
  3. Above the results, click the Send to arrow and select RefWorks.
  4. A dialog opens for you to select what to send. The default is Author, Title, Source. You can use the down arrow to include the abstract.
  5. Pop-up blockers in browsers sometimes block this process. If so, turn off the pop-up blocker, usually from your browser’s Tools menu, or click the information bar that appears, and select to accept pop-ups from
  6. Log in to your RefWorks account if you are not already logged in.
  7. The active window switches to RefWorks, and the Import References window appears on top. It states how many references have been successfully imported. Click the View Last Imported Folder button to see your newly imported references.

How to import references from JSTOR

  1. Go to JSTOR, from the E-resources list under J, or any departmental E-resources page, and perform a search.
  2. In the page of results, select the references you want to keep by clicking in the little box to the left of the title.
  3. At the top of the page, click onExport.
  4. This takes you to the Export Citations page, with a list of the references you selected. At the top, under Select a format, click RefWorks.
  5. Pop-up blockers in browsers sometimes block this process. If so, turn off the pop-up blocker, usually from your browser’s Tools menu, or click the information bar that appears, and select to accept pop-ups from
  6. Log in to your RefWorks account if you are not already logged in.
  7. The active window switches to RefWorks, and the Import References window appears on top. It states how many references have been successfully imported. Click the View Last Imported Folder button to see your newly imported references.

How to import references from Business Source Complete

  1. Go to Business Source Complete (you can find it from the E-Resources list under ‘B’) and perform a search. Select the individual records you would like to import into Refworks by clicking the ‘Add to folder’ link under each of the records.
  2. Once you have selected the results you want to save, click the
    Folder icon in the top menu bar.
  3. Click the box for ‘Select all’ (unless you have changed your mind about any).
  4. Click the ‘Export’ icon (the page with an arrow coming out of it).
  5. Select the option Direct export to RefWorks, ensure any pop-up blocker is turned off, and click the Save button.
  6. If not already logged in, log in to your RefWorks account when prompted.
  7. The Import References panel appears, and the selected references are imported into your Last imported folder.

The interface above (EBSCOhost) is also used by other databases including EconLit, GeoRef, MLA, PsycArticles, and PsycInfo.

Most other services work in one of these ways. Look for a means to select results by marking them or adding them to a favourites list or folder, and then look for how to export the selections to RefWorks. One exception is PubMed, which it is easier to search from within RefWorks, see the next section.

Exercise:Do a search in any of the databases covered above and import 5 results into Refworks.

3.2 Searching for references from within RefWorks

It is possible to search many library catalogues, and the major biomedical database PubMed, from within RefWorks and add the relevant references to your database.

The following stepsshow how to import references from the Library Catalogue

  1. Go to the Search menu in Refworks and down to “Online catalog or database”
  2. The Online catalog or database window appears on top. Using the drop-down list by Search, you will find that Royal Holloway’s is one of the catalogues available to search from within RefWorks. Click this to select it.
  3. Enter your search terms. Refworks will display up to fifty matching references in RefWorks format
  4. Select the ones you want and click theImport button to save them to your own database. When a dialog asks if you are sure, click OK.
  5. The ‘Import results” window appears and states how many records were imported. As before, click the View Last Imported Folder button to view them.

3.3 Typing in new references manually

It is simple to add references to your database by typing in the details, or by copying and pasting them from another window, and there is a form to ensure that you enter the details correctly. This may be the fastest way, for example if you have already found what you want in a web browser, or have a book or a photocopy from a journal in your hand.

The following stepsshow how to add references manually

  1. Click the New Reference button.
  2. The Add New Reference window opens. Select the Reference style you normally use in the top drop down box.
  3. Select the Reference type i.e. book, journal article (drop down box)
  4. Fill in all the boxes you have information for. Enter authors with their surnames first, i.e., Smith, Adam. If you need help on how to enter any of the details, click the Help link at the top right of the window.
  5. If you need more fields, such as notes fields to enter details you need to remember, click the Additional Fields link.
  6. When you have finished, click the Save Reference button.

Exercise:Add the following reference manually

Reference style:Harvard (British)

Reference type:Book (whole)

Barton, Simon. A history of Spain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

3.4 References to web pages

Web pages are increasingly frequent sources of information, but as with any other source, if you make use of them in your academic work you must supply a full reference. As with other types of reference, styles vary, but the essential elements to record are:

  • Personal author or corporate body taking responsibility – usually found at the top or foot of the page.
  • Title of the page – usually found at the top, and often in the window header
  • Date the page was mounted, which again may be at the top or foot of the page, but should be stated somewhere
  • The url (web address), i.e.
  • The date when you visited the page, as web pages are likely to change, but earlier versions are sometimes traceable in web archives.

In the Add New Reference window, if you change the Ref type to “Web page”, you will see a form with appropriately labeled boxes to include these details. In the Firefox browser on the PC Labs machines, we have included the RefGrab-It button which gives an easy way to start this process. If you open a web page which you need to reference, and click the RefGrab-It button in the lower margin, it will capture some of the essential details from the page into a temporary RefWorks record, which you can then import to your RefWorks account. It is no more than a start, though; web pages vary so much that RefGrab-It can never capture everything required, and you will need to edit the record to add the remaining details.

If you like RefGrab-It, you can install it on a computer of your own by going to the Tools menu and selecting RefGrab-It It is available for Internet Explorer 6,7 and 8 (but not 9) and Firefox (works with versions 3 to 7).

4 Organising references into folders

The last references you imported always go into a RefWorks folder calledLast Imported. Any references which were already there are not lost, but moved into a folder called

Not in a Folder.

You can create as many new folders as you need by clicking the NewFolderbutton, for example, you might have a folder for each course you take or each chapter of a thesis. The same reference can be placed in more than one folder.

Once you have created your folder, you can add references to it by selecting them, and using the “Add to” button, under the ‘Organize & Share Folders’ tab.

Exercise:Create a new folder called ‘TEST’ and move into it the five references you imported earlier.

5 Creating lists of formatted references

To create a list of references in a chosen format, click the CreateBibliographybutton. The Create Bibliography window opens.

In the ‘Output Styles” bar, use the down arrow to select the style you want to use. You can output your bibliography in any one of over 300 formatting styles covering all the established journals and subject areas. To avoid the delay of loading the full list of styles on every occasion, you are only offered a shorter list of favourite styles. If the one you want is not shown, click the link Output Style Manager below the bar. It will open a new window in which you can see the full list, scroll through it, and add more styles to your list of favourites by highlighting them and clicking the green arrow to move them into your favourites.

You can use all your references, the contents of any folder, or any selection, and you can output in Word files (for Windows or Mac), Open Office format, .rtf format which can be used by any modern word processing software and retain the formatting, or html.

Exercise: Create a reference list formatted in the Harvard – British standard formatfrom the references in your ‘TEST’ folder.

6Inserting references in your documents

6.1 Inserting references by pasting

You can insert referencesfrom your RefWorks account while you are writing. If you click the double curly brackets icon over a reference in RefWorks 2, the Citation Viewer appears with a suitable short reference marker. Click the Selectbutton. It can then be copied and pasted into the correct place in your document, looking like this:

{{478 Gotz,T. 2006;}}

When you are ready to format your document, you first have to save it, which is to ensure you have a safe version before it is formatted over the internet. Then click on Bibliography, select the reference style you wish to use – all your “favourites” will be displayed – and click the Create Bibliography button. The Create Bibliography window opens. As before, choose the output style to use. Click the link “format a paper and Bibliography”, opening a new dialog where you can browse for the right file. As soon as the file is selected the formatting begins. Your file is formatted in the style you have selected, including the creation of an ordered list of references at the end if that is required by the style. The formatted file is renamed with the prefix “Final-“ so that you can save it without overwriting the original file with the RefWorks codes. You can use that file to create new versions of your document in different reference styles.

6.2 Inserting references with Write’N’Cite