UKC

Hi Folks, Is there an easier way of creating a reference list than manually retrieving the relevant information required from the book/journal etc?

I have to use Harvard referencing and it takes a great deal of precious time to create the Ref list and I heard there might be an online resource for creating references?

any help appreciated as deadline is 3 weeks away and I've still got quite a bit to do!

Thanks

In reply to higherclimbingwales: refworks?

In reply to sleavesley: if your based at Bangor, you can export your library to refworks and then format that into Harvard. Contact library staff who can help.

In reply to higherclimbingwales: Plenty of software available, does your university give you access to one ? Other options include on line tools such as Zotero (for Firefox) which will produce references in a choice of formats including what it calls Harvard Referencing 1

In reply to higherclimbingwales: I used 'neils toolbox' when I was doing mine. but you still need to enter in the information. makes it A LOT easier if you just do it as you go along.

In reply to sleavesley: Cool thanks for that. Library's not open on sundays so i'll call in

In reply to David Barratt:
I would second what you said about doing it as you go along. If you've got to this stage, with all the papers, and haven't put the details into any referencing software it might actually be quicker to just do it manually. That's what I ended up doing for my PhD thesis. It was a slog, but as long as you do it carefully and logically its not to bad. Your dissertation can't be anywhere near as long as my thesis was! (note, if I did it again I would have used referencing software from the start without a doubt, to plan to do it manually would be insane, but hindsight is wonderful and some seemingly obvious things aren't!)

In reply to freerangecat: yeah it's only 5000 words but they are expecting anything between 9 and 20 references so it's not a great deal of work but it's work nonetheless.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

You can do it in Word and it's pretty simple - you can add page numbers to citations, add bibliography at the end etc. I prefer doing it this way because everything is then in one programme. Look up 'adding references in MS Word' on google. If they haven't got the referencing template you need as standard you can either create your own or download one (I use Harvard referencing and found a decent template after a short bit of googling).

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

For a dissertation? Man, that's pretty short - what course are you doing?

In reply to Edradour: Yeah it is short - It's part of my PGCE so the course is mostly on placement but it has a masters level module which is an open study on education.
The referencing is 10% of the mark and it's the one thing that has let me down with other assignments.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

There are a whole load of different options to try here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software


Endnote has good integration with Word and with databases such as WoK and Pubmed, but it's expensive. It might be available on your institute's machines though.

I like Mendeley and Zotero for free options.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

I'll second the recommendation for Mendeley. Easy to import references from Google Scholar (or wherever) and it'll format the bibliography however you like.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

If I gave into my particularly grumpy scathing mood today I'd say you could have written out 9-20 references in the time it's taken post/respond to this thread, or to mess about finding software, but that would be mean

In reply to freerangecat: likewise, if s/he'd said it was only for 9-20 references I'd have suggested just writing them out (or editing after cut & pasting) in Word - learning how to use most of the alternatives will take longer!

In reply to freerangecat:

I think I used RefGrabIt which was provided by the university. Although iirc, it was crap at formatting the output, so I ended up have to retype half of them anyway. It was good for capturing references as I went along (especially over a long period working on my dissertation), but you might find it easier just to type them out.

In reply to majortom: Use Mendeley, it's so much better than everything else and free too.

In reply to higherclimbingwales: I second what Edradour said - the integrated referencing system in MS Word is brilliantly simple and has a variety of styles (including Harvard).

It keeps a master list of references as well, so if you've used a certain book in another Word doc then you can import it from the master list into the current list etc. It's just the absolute biz.

In reply to alexm198:

Thanks I'll look at that as I've actually been reviewing textbooks more than journals. I think the online Library catalogue has most of the information I need so I can cut and paste that info.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:
As others have said, use the inbuilt referencing software in MS word.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Just finishing my part-time MSc thesis now (15,000 ish words). I hate referencing. The university provides refworks and it works fine on their systems. Unfortunately I'm using a laptop provided by my office who have an "absolutely no third-party software whatsoever" policy. So no refworks for me