As I slowly saw off the chains of my self-imposed grad school sentence, I embrace the simple tools that make the arduous less so. Perhaps the most important tool for this task, thus far, has been EndNote. An hour investment in EndNote library tutorials during my first semester at KU paid phenomenal chronological dividends. Yet I notice that for many of my colleagues EndNote is a mythical beast to be conquered in post-comp dissertation purgatory. I also notice that there is a RefWorks contingent that would happily wage RefWars to my blasphemous EndNote praise. Quickly I’d like to define EndNote, challenge the former assertion, and encourage some deliberative discourse for RefWorks.
First things first: What is EndNote and how is it used? EndNote is a magical software tool (free from KU) that acts as an organizing fairy for bibliographical references; a fairy that also formats your in-text citations and references page. First, you build a reference library. You use the “interwebs” to import references automatically (e.g., just click the “import into EndNote function” on Google Scholar) and once you have them you can organize them into specific folders if you’d like (I have one for each class I take and each paper I write). EndNote also works with Microsoft Word. Once you have your reference, with a few clicks, you can add any reference in any format (e.g. MLA, Chicago, APA) and it will format it in your bibliography section automatically.
While EndNote is perfect for a huge project—like a dissertation—it is also perfect to keep track of all your readings during your grad school career. You can attach digital files to any EndNote reference for easy access to your notes and digital .pdf markups. Also, the library will scan in book sections if you give them a few days. Thus, when I find an important book chapter, I request the scanned .pdf so it’s easily on hand. This will also help as you compile your comp’s bib—as you now have everything you have ever read. You can also share your compiled “EndNote reference libraries,” just in case you might be missing something from a past class. Furthermore, if you have any other suggestions for EndNote helps, let us know, and post them below.
Finally, as I preach the gospel of EndNote, I am curious to the competing religious force of RefWorks. If you use it, what do you like about it? If you hate it, why does it suck? Do you know how many more miracles RefWorks has to have attributed to it to achieve magical fairy sainthood? Help us out, pick some reference fights, break your grad school shackles, and wage on friends!
PS – vote for Evan