I finished my Master’s degree in December of last year. I’d heard about services such as these, but I didn’t take the time to explore them and did all my citations the old-fashioned way. Now that I’ve looked at these sites, I feel like I could have saved myself a lot of work, especially since I primarily used articles from online databases for my research and writing.
Having explored all three of these websites, I think Zotero seems the most functional for students. In my mind, the biggest benefit is its ability to cite everything correctly and in different styles. In almost every class for my MLS, we were told to use APA style. One class required MLA style. A tool such as Zotero would have made this much less painful; I wouldn’t have had to adjust to using a completely different style.
As I think of my library’s patrons, I can see recommending these sites to college students. To be honest, though, even having them stick around long enough to show them one online database is a feat. I hope my academic library counterparts have a higher success rate.
