RefWorks is a citation manager. It can help you organize your research by storing citations (and even full text) for the articles you find. You can then use these citations to automatically generate a bibliography, formatted to whatever citation style you choose. You can even sync your RefWorks account with Microsoft Word and drop citations directly into your Word document.
RefWorks looks like a big, complicated program, but it's actually easy to use and very useful. Take the time to dive in and fiddle around with it to decide if it is a tool you could use.
1. Go to refworks.proquest.com (or click the RefWorks link on the Foley homepage and choose the new, blue version of RefWorks if you are asked).
2. Click Create Account. (Note: even if you already have an account with the old version of RefWorks, you will still need to create a new account in the new version. Once you have done so you can import all your citations from the old version to the new. Click here for instructions.)
3. Enter your Gonzaga email address. RefWorks will see that you are part of the Gonzaga community and grant you access.
4. Choose a password to use along with your email for logging in, and click Sign Up.
5. Congratulations, you have a new RefWorks account!
Now that you have a RefWorks account, you need to add some citations to it!
1. Make sure you are logged in to your RefWorks account.
2. Find an article in one of Foley's databases. I'm using Academic Search Complete, an EBSCO database. (Other databases will look a little different but operate much the same way.)
3. When you have found an article in the database that you would like to keep track of in RefWorks, click on the Export link on the right side of the Detailed Record. (In other databases it might be called Save or something else). That link takes you to the Export Manager where RefWorks is the default for Foley Center Library databases.
4. Click Save to send the citation to RefWorks, where it appears in Last Imported and in All Documents.
Now RefWorks has all the information you need to cite that article!
(Note: the majority of our databases can directly export citation information to your RefWorks account. For some of the trickier databases to use with RefWorks, see the separate sections for them below.)
Not working? Try these steps:
1. Make sure your browser isn't blocking popups from the database. Check the upper right corner of the browser screen for an icon or text indicating that popups are being blocked. Below is how it looks in Chrome (as of this writing, anyway); it might look a little different in your browser. Tell the browser to allow popups for the database.
2. Use the "Save to RefWorks" bookmarklet. Instead of the database sending the info to RefWorks, using this bookmarklet means that RefWorks reaches into the database and tries to grab the info instead. It works really well! Instructions for using it are in the first tab in the "Advanced Refworks Tecniques" section below.
3. If all else fails, look for an option in the database to export in RIS format. This will download a tiny little file to your computer. Upload that file to RefWorks (see the screenshot below) and your citation will magically appear!
If you want to cite something you did not find in a database (like a book, or a PDF found elsewhere), you can manually enter the citation information into RefWorks.
1. Click the + botton and choose Create New Reference.
A panel will appear on the right side of the screen.
2. Select the source type (book, journal article, etc) from the drop down menu.
3. Enter the title into the Title field.
4a. As a shortcut, once you have entered the title, click the lightning-looking button on the right (see the screenshot below). This will look through Summon, Proquest's metadata database (try saying that three times fast) to try to find a match. If it finds one, just click it in the list that appears at bottom, and it will fill in all the rest of the citation information.
4b. Or just finish filling the fields out manually.
5. Click Save at the top to save the citation.
Once you have several citations in your RefWorks account, it can be useful to organize them into folders.
1. RefWorks folders are listed in the left sidebar. Click + Add a Folder to add and name a new folder.
2. To add citations to your new folder, just go to All Documents, Last Imported, or Not in Folder, click on the citation you want to add, and drag it to the folder.
That's it!
Once you have organized your citations into a folder, you can use that folder to generate a formatted bibliography.
1. Click on the RefWorks folder you want to use to generate your bibliography
2. If you want to use every reference in this folder for your bibliography, go on to the next step. If you want to use specific references, click the checkbox next to each reference you want to use.
3. Click on 
and choose Create Bibliography.
4. Choose your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc) from the dropdown menu at the top, and watch as your bibliography is automatically changed to match. When you are happy, click Copy to Clipboard.
Then just go to Microsoft Word (or wherever you are writing your paper) and paste the bibliography in! This is what a bibliography looks like when it has been generated as a Word document in APA. That sure saved a lot of work! For more cool things you can do with RefWorks and Word, check out the Write-N-Cite page in this guide.
(Sharp eyes might notice a mistake or two in this bibliography. See Always Proofread RefWorks for the reason for this.)
RefWorks can save you a ton of time because it's much faster than a human at creating bibliographies. Unfortunately, though, it's not nearly as smart as a human. So it's up to you to check its work!
Bibliography Example
Kim, D., Fisher, D, & McCalman, D. (2009). Modernism, christianity, and business ethics: A worldview perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 90(1), 115-121. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0031-2
Here’s a cool Bob Marley quote. "Although the road has been long and bumpy, it sure feels good to me".
What's Wrong?
RefWorks does not recognize proper nouns. This is such a common error that you will probably find at least one when you proofread your own bibliography. Luckily, it’s an easy fix.
Bibliography Example
Andersson, L. M., & Pearson, C. M. (1999). Tit for tat? The spiraling effect of incivility in the workplace. The Academy of Management Review, 24(3), 452-471. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/259136
In this article we introduce the concept of workplace incivility and explain how incivility can potentially spiral into increasingly intense aggressive behaviors. To gain an understanding of the mechanisms that underlie an "incivility spiral," we examine what happens at key points: the starting and tipping points. Furthermore, we describe several factors that can facilitate the occurrence and escalation of an incivility spiral and the secondary spirals that can result.
What's Wrong?
This is the abstract from the database. If you are required to annotate your bibliography, you will need to replace this with your own annotation.
Bibliography Example
CHRISTIAN, K., ENGEL, A. M., & SMITH, J. M. (2011). Predictors and outcomes of prolonged ventilation after coronary artery bypass graft surgery. American Surgeon, 77(7), 942-947.
I like watching Gonzaga basketball, but I prefer reruns of nerdy TV shows
What's Wrong?
Author's names are in ALL CAPS. Some databases put authors or titles in all caps. You can fix this as you proofread your bibliography. To permanently correct it, edit the record in RefWorks.
Bibliography Example
Haldeman, J. (2011). The learning organization: From dysfunction to grace. Journal of Management & Marketing Research, 9, 1-9. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=74559446&site=bsi-live
Dysfunctional school administration or bosses who are bullies are interesting topics; not pleasant to think about, but interesting.
What's Wrong?
This is an APA-style citation, and “retrieved from” and the accompanying URL aren’t required in APA citations. As stated on the Purdue OWL website: “...data-base information in citations is not necessary because databases change over time.” It's important to know the rules for your particular citation style.
Bibliography Example
Johnson, C. E. (2007). Ethics in the workplace: Tools and tactics for organizational transformation. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Retrieved from http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0612/2006011640.html; Materials specified: Table of contents http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0612/2006011640.html; Materials specified: Table of contents http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&doc_number=015602009&line_number=0001?&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA; Materials specified: Table of contents http://digitool.hbz-nrw.de:1801/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=1928130&custom%5Fatt%5F2=simple%5Fviewer; Materials specified: Contributor biographical information http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0734/2006011640-b.html; Materials specified: Publisher description http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0657/2006011640-d.html
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Sally sells sea shells by a pack of pickled peppers. Eleven benevolent elephants were telling tales of tongue twisters
What's Wrong?
Do NOT include the table of contents! This is a book citation exported from WorldCat. Something in the WorldCat export file often causes extra information to show up in your RefWorks bibliography. This is very useful information in WorldCat, but it does not belong in an APA bibliography! If something like this shows up in your bibliography, delete it!
These video tutorials will walk you through the main features and capabilities of RefWorks.
In addition to direct database exporting of citations, RefWorks offers a tool that will try to scan and parse the page you are on, whether that is a database or a web site, and import its citation information into RefWorks. To install this tool, click on on button that looks like three dots stacked on top of each other, and then click Tools.
2. Click on Install Save to RefWorks.
3. Drag the bookmarklet to the bookmark bar in your browser.
4. Now, whenever you want to try to save something to RefWorks from a database or webpage, just click on this button in your bookmark bar and RefWorks will open a panel and try to pull the information needed for a citation.
This tool works better on some databases than others, but it's always worth a try because of how seamless it is when it works!
To edit a citation in RefWorks to correct or add information, simply:
1. Click on the citation you want to edit. A panel will appear on the right side of the screen.
2. Click the pencil button on the upper right.
3. Edit the information! (You can even add the PDF full text here by dragging and dropping it right onto the panel).
RefWorks has citation styles that include annotations. To add an annotation to one of your citations, just:
1. click on it and then click the pencil icon 
in the upper right corner of the info panel that appears.
2. You will see a field labeled Abstract. This particular citation is for a book found in WorldCat. WorldCat automatically filled the Abstract field with a table of contents for the book. Articles from databases often have the abstract from the database here.
Replace whatever is in this field with your own annotation and click Save at the top of the panel.
3. Now when you create a bibliography and choose a style that includes "Annotated with Abstracts," your bibliography will include your annotation.
The latest version of RefWorks emphasizes saving and working with the full text of articles in addition to their citations. When you export from a database, RefWorks should automatically scan for PDF full text and include it if available. (Tip: we've found that grabbing the full text works most reliably when using the Save to RefWorks bookmarklet).
Once the full text has been saved, all you have to is click on the citation in RefWorks, and the full text will be available in the information panel that opens on the right. Just click Read to read the full text, and even annotate it with your own highlighting and comments!
You can also add the full text to an existing citation by clicking the Edit button (looks like a pencil) in the top right corner of the information panel, and then just dragging the PDF file to the box that says Drop file here:
This box also show up when you add a brand new citation manually: if you drop the PDf there RefWorks will try to identify it using it's behind-the-scenes Summon database; if it gets a match it will fill in the citation information for you!
To share a folder of citations with another RefWorks user, click Sharing in the left sidebar.
Click Share a Folder.
A box will pop up with a menu that will allow you to choose the folder to share and enter the email addresses of anyone you want to invite (they will need to have their own RefWorks account).
If you choose Only invited people may access, the folder will only be shared with people of your choice. If you choose Anyone within your organization may join this folder, then anyone at Gonzaga will be able to see it in the Folders at Gonzaga University collection in the Sharing sidebar.
Can read means that the person you share the folder with can only view the citations and read the PDFs. Can annotate means that they can also make comments and highlights on the PDFs. Can modify means that they can also edit citations and add or delete citations from the folder.
Can't figure out how to export a citation from a particular database to RefWorks? Try finding your database in this list:
ACM Online Guide to Computing Literature
ACS (American Chemical Society) Website
Agricola (USDA National Agricultural Library)
Association for Asian Studies (AAS)
BMJ.com (British Medical Journal Online)
China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI)
CIOS (Communication Institute for Online Scholarship)
EBSCOhost EJS (Electronic Journals Service)
ERIC (Education Resources Information Center)
Informaworld (Taylor & Francis)
IxTheo (Index Theologicus)
Jahrbuch Database Electronic Research Archive for Mathematics
Japana Centra Revuo Medicina (医中誌 WEB)
LEA Online (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.)
LIBRIS (libris.kb.se)
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)
ProQuest Digital Dissertations
PsycINFO Direct ( APA Website)
Scitation (American Institute of Physics)
SilverPlatter WebSPIRS Version 5
SSRN (Social Science Research Network)
STINET (see DTIC/STINET)
Transportation Research Information Services TRIS
University of California Press
Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
WilsonWeb - H.W. Wilson Company
WorldCat has an option to export citations directly to RefWorks, but for reasons unknown it doesn't work. Fortunately, there's a workaround:
1. In the record of the book or item you want to cite, click the 
(Export) button in the top row of buttons.
2. In the options that appear, choose Text File instead of RefWorks. This will download a tiny file to your computer.
3. In RefWorks, click the + button at the top of the screen and choose Import References.
4. Upload the text file that was downloaded to your computer earlier. RefWorks won't be able to reognize the file format, and will ask you to tell it what it is. Type WorldCat into the search box and select OCLC FirstSearch [WorldCat]. Then click Import.
5. You're done!
RefWorks offers an add-in for Microsoft Word that allows you to drop any citation from your RefWorks account into a Word document, fully-formatted in whatever citation style you choose. It also creates and automatically updates a bibliography or works cited page. Using this add-in can help you spend less time on citations and formatting and more on the actual work of writing.
There are two versions of the add-in. Write-n-Cite is the old version, and works with Word 2013 and earlier. The new version is called RefWorks Citation Manager, and works with Word 2016 and later. Choose the version you need below for instructions on installing and using the tool.
1. Open Word and click Insert -> Add-ins -> Store.
2. In the box that appears, search for RefWorks.
3. Click on RefWorks Citation Manager, then Trust It in the box that pops up.
4. The RefWorks Citation Manager will launch within Word, and a panel will slide out from the right side of your document. Log in using your RefWorks login info.
1. If it is not already active, activate RefWorks Citation Manager by going to Insert -> Add-ins -> My Add-ins and choosing it from the box that pops up.
2. A panel will slide out from the right side of your document, listing your RefWorks citations!
4. Clicking Cite this will drop an in-text citation into your document where the cursor is! It also automatically generates a bibliography, which will be updated automatically every time you add a new citation. Amazing! (You can drop the bibliography to another page using Insert --> Page Break.)
5. That's it! You have everything you need to use RefWorks with Microsoft Word.
Citation Format: Author’s Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year). Title of the ERIC Document. (Report Number). Place of Publication: Publisher. Retrieved from ERIC database. (ERIC Accession number).
Example
Vendlinski, T.P., Chung, G.K.W.K., Binning, K.R., & Buschang, R.E. (2011). Teaching Rational Number Addition Using Video Games: The Effects of Instructional Variation. (CRESST Report 808). Los Angeles, CA; University of California, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). Retrieved from ERIC database. (ED527531).
NOTE: ERIC Documents can be reports, brochures, articles, books, dissertations, theses, etc. and portions of this APA citation structure may not apply. Fill in as much information as you have and include the ERIC Document number (ED#####).
ERIC Document (Online database)
Citation Format: Author’s Last Name, First Name (if given). Title of the ERIC Document. Place of Publication: Publisher, Date. ERIC. Web. Day Mon. Year of Access.
Example: Waite-McGough, Arianne. Teaching through Mnemonics in Elementary School Classrooms. San Rafael, CA: Online Submission. 2012. ERIC. Web. 30 Dec. 2014.
ERIC Journal (Online database)
Citation Format: Author’s Last Name, First Name (if given). "Title of the ERIC Document." Title of Source volume.issue (date):page-page (if given). ERIC. Web. Day Mon. Year of Access.
Example: Young, Andrea. "Improvisation In The Mathematics Classroom." Primus 23.5 (2013): 467-476. ERIC. Web. 8 Dec. 2014.
ERIC Document (microfiche)
Citation Format: Author’s Last Name, First Name (if given). Title of the Source. Place of Pub: Publisher, Date. ERIC ED######. Microform.
Example: Carey, Doris, Regan Carey. Microcomputers In Education: A Self-Paced Orientation. Eugene, OR: International Council for Computers in Education, 1984. ERIC ED262761. Microform.
Basic Format: Author. Year. Title. ERIC Document No. #.
Example: Oliver, Dorothy. 1997. Literacy Theatre. ERIC Document No. ED404558
Get the Plugin
From your RefWorks page, go to the "three dots" menu and choose "Tools."
Scroll down to "Cite in Microsoft Word" and click 
Add a Citation
Once you have installed Write-N-Cite, open Microsoft Word and click the tab that has been added to your ribbon -- it will be called either "ProQuest" or "RefWorks." Click on “Log In” and enter your RefWorks username and password.
To add your first citation, choose “Insert Citation” and then “Insert New.”
A window pops up allowing you to choose a RefWorks citation from your RefWorks folders.
Click “OK” and the citation is added to your document:
Once you insert a citation, it also gets added to a menu under the “Insert Citation” button so you can re-use it quickly:
Add a Bibliography
You can insert a bibliography into your document by clicking “Bibliography Options” and “Insert Bibliography.”
The bibliography is added to the document. It updates automatically, so every time you add a citation to the body of your text, the full citation appears in the bibliography, properly ordered:
At any time, you can change your citation style . . .
. . . and the citations and bibliography in your document will automatically update.
You can add a citation as a footnote instead of an in-text citation by checking the box that says “Make Footnote” when you add a new citation.
A footnote is added to the bottom of the page:
That’s it! Now you know all you need to begin using Write-N-Cite to speed up you work.
The plugin also has advanced options for things like customizing your bibliography’s formatting or editing your citations. You can learn more at https://www.refworks.com/rwsingle/help/Write-N-Cite_Advanced_Features_and_Options.htm.
Write-N-Cite's Mac version looks a little different but functions identically to the PC version.
Installing Write-N-Cite on a Mac:
First, download Write-N-Cite to your computer. If you have an older version of Write-N-Cite already installed, you may get a pop-up message like the one below when you open Word. To download the latest version of Write-N-Cite, login to your RefWorks account and go to Tools --> Write-N-Cite.
There are two versions of Write-N-Cite available: Mac and Windows. Choose the appropriate version for your computer, and download and install the software. Then, open Microsoft Word.
If you open Microsoft Word and don’t automatically see the Write-N-Cite toolbar at the top left of your screen, go to Help and search for “Write-N-Cite.” This will give you a link to show your WNC toolbar.
Before you login to Write-N-Cite, your toolbar will look like the one below. Click the person icon to enter your RefWorks login information:
Enter your RefWorks account info in the login window. All the sources currently in your RefWorks account will then be downloaded to Write-N-Cite in Word.
Now, your Write-N-Cite toolbar will look like this. You’re ready to write…and cite!
Using Write-N-Cite on a Mac
