Referencing

My personal approach to referencing:

I've been using referencing in my writing for many years and just a relevant is that I have been teaching referencing for just as long. While there is often much focus on what the referencing looks like, there is often limited discussion of how experienced academics actually do their referencing. 

Firstly, there is no single correct way of doing it, people tend to find their own workflows, both in terms of the process and in terms of the technology that is used. 

I use Zotero (but Mendeley is also good) to manage my citations. 

• These can be used on several levels from just storing citations (and/or pdfs, I pay £20 pa for enough Zotero storage that I don’t need to worry) to using them to read and highlight text, to using them as the in document referencing manager.

• I have a plug-in in Chrome which means I press one button on the ribbon in my browser and it stores the citation (and pdf if available) in Zotero and it is ready to use

• I write in google docs and Zotero works best in that.

• Sometimes I copy and paste the full reference from Zotero rather than use the macro thing it can also do (which I use when writing essays etc)

I also use Google scholar and whenever I find something slightly interesting I copy and paste the full reference onto a Google Doc (the same one I am working in). That is the first thing I do so that I will never lose track of it. 

• I usually have way more citations/references in my documents than I need. I start with loads and then whittle them down to those that are used in the final version.

Sometimes, when I want to tidy up a half finished draft, I start a new blank document, sketch out an essay plan, then drop in the best text I have in the best place. If I haven’t already started using Zotero, I might then convert all citations to Zotero one’s as that will manage the inclusion/exclusion of citations in the final reference list (ie only have those mentioned and nothing else)