RefWorks Overview
RefWorks is a comprehensive reference management service designed to support the research needs of students, faculty, and librarians. Here is a detailed overview of what the product does and its key features:
What RefWorks Does
RefWorks is an online tool that helps users gather, organize, store, and share various types of research materials. It streamlines the process of producing research papers by providing a centralized workspace for managing references, collaborating with others, and generating citations and bibliographies.
Key Features and Functionality
Reference Management
- RefWorks allows users to store and manage all their references in one place. This includes uploaded files, physical or electronic books, chapters, and citations from external websites.
- Users can manually create new references, import references from other reference management services like Mendeley, or upload documents directly from their computers.
Organization and Tagging
- The platform offers multiple options for organizing references using folders and tags. A single reference can be assigned to multiple folders and tags, making it easy to categorize and retrieve information.
- Tools are available to help edit references in bulk, find and eliminate duplicate references, and sort references based on various criteria.
Annotation and Viewing
- Users can view and annotate uploaded citations directly within RefWorks. This feature includes the ability to read, annotate, and highlight full-text documents.
Citation and Bibliography
- RefWorks supports multiple citation styles, including CSL styles, and offers a comprehensive citation style editor to create new styles. Users can generate bibliographies and in-text citations in various formats, such as APA, MLA, and Chicago.
- The “Quick Cite” feature allows users to create citations to copy and paste into their documents.
Collaboration
- RefWorks enables users to share folders of references with other users, facilitating collaboration among researchers. Users can also read, annotate, and highlight full-text documents in a collaborative environment.
Integration and Export
- The service allows users to add references directly from websites using the “Save to RefWorks” bookmarklet or through direct export when supported. Additionally, RefWorks can be synchronized with Dropbox to automatically make copies of uploaded citations.
- Users can export references to their computer’s file system and import references from other services.
Search and Discovery
- RefWorks includes features to search external databases and discover new references to add to the user’s library. Users can also view recently imported references and manage their references by folders, tags, or search results.
Support and Resources
- RefWorks provides extensive support resources, including a knowledge center, video tutorials, and customer support available via email or phone. Users can also submit suggestions for new features through the RefWorks Ideas Exchange.
Conclusion
In summary, RefWorks is a powerful tool that simplifies the research process by offering robust features for reference management, organization, citation generation, collaboration, and integration with other services, making it an invaluable resource for researchers at all levels.