Fantastic Reference Managers and Where to Find Them
After years of painful shifts between them and months trying to find the holy grail of reference managers, I decided to take the plunge. I have made a choice and decided to write about it, hoping that my advice will allow you to never have to go through all this.
I am a lover of desktop apps and I am currently running macOS. For this reason, this article will discuss solely desktop reference managers available on macOS. If you’re happy with your web based one or you’re running Windows/Linux, this post is not for you and deep down I envy you!
Papers 3
Four years ago, when I got a placement as a research assistant in a research lab, I was introduced to the concept of reference managers. At the time, having had no experience whatsoever with this kind of software, I just followed what the head of research recommended: Papers 3.
Papers at the time was a great piece of software. Even though it was not free (If I remember correctly, I paid £30, taking advantage of an educational discount) it had everything I needed. It was a sleek macOS-style app that worked seamlessly with Word. With a double tap of the [ctrl] key, I was able to call the Papers 3 assistant, type the name of the paper I wanted and place a properly formatted in-text reference. Once I was done with the document, I…