AMA Style Guide: Citing Using Reference Managers

Reference Managers can be used to create citations and format bibliographies as you write. You can select different citation styles, such as AMA, and the Reference Manager will automatically generate the citation for you.

Don't know which reference manager to choose?

Endnote is great for in-depth research projects like systematic reviews, but an EndNote license costs $108 with our UNC discount.  Endnote has customizable duplicate searching so you can remove more duplicates.  It also has a Find Full Text feature that attempts to automatically download the PDFs of articles you select.  Endnote also connects with Word to cite while you are writing. You can also download nearly 6,000 custom output styles for any citation style your field uses. You can also use a free, web-based version called EndNote Basic.

Lean Library Workspace (Sciwheel) is a web-based alternative that is easy to use and has a browser plugin to grab citations from the web.  It connects with Word to cite while you are writing.  You can also import PDFs and Lean Library Workspace (Sciwheel) will create a citation for them.

Zotero is another free citation management tool with similar features to Lean Library Workspace (Sciwheel) or Mendeley.  At this time, HSL only offers one-on-one support for Zotero.

Mendeley is another free software you may have heard of that has similar features to Lean Library Workspace (Sciwheel).  Mendeley is less consistent with providing you links to the full articles, however.  Our library does not provide technical support for Mendeley.

We have an in-depth comparison chart below and tips for switching citation managers on our Choosing a Citation Manager guide.