A question I am sometimes asked is what is the difference between Cite Them Right, ProQuest Refworks and Cite this in Word (also known as Write N Cite)?
These products have similar names but in reality they have different purposes. My advice would be start with the concepts of citing and referencing and understand these first. These terms are often used together and interchangeably to mean citations included in your academic work to indicate where you have used or quoted other peoples’ ideas or research and a more detailed alphabetical list of these references at the end of your work.
- Cite Them Right
At City, we have access to Cite Them Right Online. In the Basics section, it gives an overview of citing and referencing and also plagiarism and other concepts such as summarising and paraphrasing. It also gives useful examples showing different types of sources such as books, journal articles and websites etc and how to cite these in your text and reference list. We also have the book version of Cite Them Right in the library.
- ProQuest RefWorks
ProQuest RefWorks is an online reference management software which we subscribe to at City. It is useful especially if you are doing a longer project or dissertation.
It is used to store, manage, and organise references which are gathered during the research process.
It can be used to assist with the production of reference lists (which it calls Bibliographies) and contains a number of different referencing styles such as Cite Them Right Harvard.
- Cite this in Word (Write N Cite)
This is a tool which can be downloaded on to your computer from the ProQuest RefWorks tools menu and used within Microsoft Word to access your RefWorks references and assist with citing and referencing in your work. You can add citations for example (Smith, 2014) into your work and create an alphabetical reference list ( which is calls a bibliography) at the end of your text.
Conclusion
I would suggest first understanding the principles of citing and referencing and the format of different references so you either know something looks correct or you know where to look it up (eg. in Cite Them Right). Then you can consider if you would like to use a reference management software (eg. ProQuest RefWorks) and then whether wish to use the Refworks plug-in Cite this in Word (or Write N Cite) to assist with your citing and referencing.
If you do use software to generate your references then always double check everything yourself to make sure it is correct and for that reason having a knowledge of citing and referencing is important.