Finding and Managing the Literature - Becoming a Food Scientist - page 106

Fig. 14.1 Sample display from an EndNote library

contains authors , year , article title , journal title , volume , issue , and page numbers .
The citation was found by doing a topic search in the database, CAB Abstracts &
CAB Archives. While the citation might have been retrieved via some other resource,
in this instance a database was searched. Naturally other types of citations (e.g., topic
chapters, patents, etc.) will require different elements when they are cited.
Read or scan the literature, keeping careful notes of where the various ideas or
quotations are located. It is crucial to keep a cache of pertinent citations in one place
rather than have them scattered among papers we have written, or among digital or
print scraps. Nothing is more distracting than to hunt for a misplaced citation or
article in the middle of writing a paper. For this reason, we should invest time in
learning to use a citation management system (CMS) like EndNote (see Fig. 14.1 )
or RefWorks. While there are others, these two are reliable, and many academic
institutions make one or both of these available. Ask classmates or librarians to help
learn citation management efficiently and effectively. Using a citation manager to
create and maintain a database of citations is a process that will reap rewards over
the remainder of our career.
A CMS can store an unlimited number of citations, allow us to link to the full-
text, and add notes and commentary. It should be able to collect these citations from
various databases, and even the world wide web (Web). A CMS will also insert
selected citations within a paper and build a bibliography, according to a journal's
publishing style (e.g., APA). All the elements required for a citation will be assem-
bled according to the specified style. We may switch from one style to another on
the fly. If a style is not available, a CMS should allow us to edit an existing style to
suit, or create new ones.
If we are working with a group, having our citations in one place will speed up
the process of sharing. It may seem odd to begin a chapter on finding resources with
an overview of citation managers. However, if we are going to go berry picking we
need a bucket to hold our berries. The CMS is the bucket, and knowing how to use
it to store citations as we forage is simply good sense.