Refworks: Organize Research and Create Bluebook Compliant Bibliography

Sue Altmeyer, Electronic Services Librarian, sue.altmeyer@law.csuohio.edu | September 18, 2009 - 16:17

CSU recently purchased Refworks, an online bibliographic management system that allows you to save the citations you find while researching. Citations can be directly imported from certain databases, such as Lexis Academic and Google Scholar. The system uses the citations you save to create bibliographies and footnotes, in Bluebook law review form.

Refworks is similar to Zotero a free Firefox add-on. Currently, Refworks appears to be more accurate when putting citations into Bluebook form. Both Zotero and Refworks can attach a copy of the article or case to the file.

The Law Library created a Quick Start Guide for Refworks. The Refworks Tutorials are also very good. For more information about Zotero, Refworks and other bibliographic management software, see the library's Reference Management Software page. Also see Proper Citation Form for Jurisdiction with Cite Genie.

CORRECTION was made to this post - this post previously stated you could not attach documents using RefWorks, but you can.

Bluebook [Reply]

Bruce | 19/09/2009, 15:19

I have a hard time believing RefWorks is more Bluebook-compliant than Zotero. BB has some quite difficult rules, which are likely impossible to represent in RefWorks. Also, the person that has taken primary responsibility for both the Bluebook style and the new processor for Zotero is also a legal scholar.

Could you perhaps give some examples so that someone might correct them?

Refworks [Reply]

Website Development in Surrey | 11/11/2009, 04:13

Humm... interesting,

after reading this i would actually have to go for Zotero, i find it more reliable..

Thanks for writing about it

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