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US130

Guide for Urban Studies 130

Log into Refworks

Purdue OWL

Citation Management Programs

Refworks, Endnote, Endnote Web, and Reference Manager are citation management programs.  They allow you to: 

  • Gather references from article databases and library catalogs
  • Create and organize a personal database of citations related to your research (often including images and PDFs)
  • Generate bibliographies and format manuscripts in a variety of citation styles (MLA, APA, AMA, etc.)
  • Transfer references between RefWorks, EndNote Web, EndNote 

A citation is an electronic record for a book, journal article, website, film or other published item.  It includes the author, title, source (publisher or URL), and date.

Refworks Information

About RefWorks
RefWorks is a Web-based bibliography and database manager that allows you to create your own personal database by importing references from text files or online databases. You can use these references in writing papers and automatically format the paper and the bibliography in seconds.

Using RefWorks
You must be connected to the internet to use RefWorks. To set up a personal RefWorks account or access your existing account from on campus or off-campus, click on the corresponding link below:

On-Campus Access
Off-Campus Access

If you are new to Refworks, click on "Sign up for an Individual Account." Enter your name, your UIC NetID as your login name, a password (different from your UIC NetID password) and your UIC email address, then click on "Register."

Quick Start Notes
There are 3 ways to import references into your RefWorks account.

  • Auto Export (many UIC databases have an autoexport function)
  • Save and Import as a text file (some UIC databases require you save your reference to a file before you import it into refworks)
  • Manually - manually type the reference details

In order to know what method you will use to import your reference from the various UIC databases we have set up a quick start guide for some of the major databases at UIC. In addition, we have created an online tutorial demonstrating several features of Refworks and how to import for some of the major databases at UIC.

If you do not see the databases you need on listed on the guides above, RefWorks also has instructions on how to import citations from various databases into RefWorks.

RefWorks Help

If you are still running into problems trying to figure out how to import citations from a specific database, email us at AskaLibrarian and we will be glad to help.