Referencing Software: Using Referencing Software

Referencing software can help you with your referencing. Some tools can quickly generate a reference in a particular referencing style, and others also help you to store, organise and keep track of your references.

The Library can support you with using free, quick referencing tools, the open source system, Zotero, and with our subscription to EndNote.

If you are an undergraduate or taught postgraduate student, we generally recommend using quick referencing tools. There are a range of tools available to suit the way you work, and they are very easy to learn. They will generate references for you in your referencing style.

If you are a researcher or writing a dissertation, and you wish to use a tool that will help you keep track of large numbers of references, we recommend Zotero. Zotero has a web-based and a desktop-based component. It takes more time to learn to use, but it will help you to organise your references, as well as generating references for you.

If you are working on a systematic review, or a similar project involving many thousands of references, we recommend EndNote. EndNote is desktop-based software, and is very good at handling large volumes of references.

Yes, you are allowed to use referencing software in your assignments. However, you are responsible for the references you submit, and no referencing tool is perfect. It is therefore essential that you check the references that these tools generate for mistakes.

You may find it helpful to reference one or two assignments manually before you start to use one of these tools. This will allow you to learn how your referencing style works, which will make it much easier to check references that have been generated automatically.

If you are a Law student using the OSCOLA referencing style, we generally do not recommend using referencing software. This is because referencing tools are not able to generate accurate references for primary legal sources (such as legislation and cases). However, if you are referencing any secondary legal sources (such as books or journal articles) you can use the quick referencing tools MyBib and ZoteroBib to generate OSCOLA references.

We do not recommend using this, as the APA style built into Word is the 6th edition. As we use APA 7th edition at Coventry University Group, your references will be incorrect if you use Word's built-in referencing function.

Both Zotero and EndNote come with Word plugins, which allow you to create references within Word as you write your assignment.

Mendeley is an alternative reference management tool. The Library does not support Mendeley, but if you are comfortable using it on your own, you are welcome to use it for your research and assignments.

Yes, it is possible to transfer references between Zotero, EndNote, MyBib and Mendeley. To do this, download your references as RIS or BibTeX files, and import them into your new tool.

If you have a bibliography saved to your browser on ZoteroBib, you can download this as a BibTeX or RIS file to move it to another tool. Most other quick referencing tools (e.g. Locate, Google Scholar, and journal databases) will also create RIS and BibTeX files.

If you have written a reference list manually in a Word document, it is possible to transfer this into a referencing tool. To do this, you first need to convert your references into an RIS file. You can ask a generative AI tool to do this for you.

We recommend using Copilot, using Edge browser on a Coventry University computer. The University pays for an enterprise licence, which means we have commercial protection over the content you upload. If you use Copilot on your personal computer, or another AI tool like ChatGPT, the file you upload may be used to train the AI. Whichever tool you use, you should never upload your whole assignment.

Upload a file containing just your reference list to Copilot, and ask Copilot to turn it into a .RIS file. It will then give you a .RIS file of your references that you can download. Then follow the instructions below to add the references to the reference tool of your choice:

• Zotero: Click File, then Import. Make sure "A file (BibTex, RIS, Zotero RDF, etc.)" is selected, then upload the .RIS file. (You may find that if you open the .RIS file from your Downloads folder, Zotero will automatically prompt you to import it.)
• EndNote: Click File, Import, and then File again. Select your .RIS file in the first box. Make sure the Import Option is set to Reference Manager (RIS), then click Import.
• MyBib: Click Import, then .RIS file. Choose the file you want to upload, and click Add References.

Sometimes Copilot makes mistakes when converting references. In particular, it may miss some details (such as an author's surname). If there are any mistakes, try using this follow-up prompt: "Thank you. Some of the data is missing. Please correct and re-convert."