What Is 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 and other various sources. You can use these references in writing papers and automatically format the paper and the bibliography in seconds.

Before we even get into all the things you can do with RefWorks -- we want to let you know that we have a variety of resources available to help you -- should you need it:

RefWorks User Support includes:

• Online Help (what you're accessing right now) -- the Online Help file has a wealth of information that you can search or navigate through from the table of contents.  Whenever you see text in blue -- that's a hotspot and you can click on it to open additional information below the hotspot.  To print a topic, right click on the topic page in the Table of Contents and select Print Target or click on the topic itself and user your browser print icon.

• Tutorials (Fundamentals, Advanced and RefShare) -- these tutorials are self-paced so you can pause, rewind, fast forward and pick and choose which modules of information you're most interested in.  You can access the tutorials from within your RefWorks account, or by clicking here.

• Quick Start Guides -- these handy printouts come in a variety of languages and are a good overview and reminder of how to perform certain functions and features in RefWorks.  Quick Start Guides can be accessed from the Tools area in your account, or by clicking here.

• Technical Support -- RefWorks Technical Services team is available Monday-Friday, 6 AM Pacific Time until 5 PM Pacific Time.  Just email us at support@refworks.com and we'll be glad to assist you.  You can also telephone us at +1.775.327.4105.

Now that you know where to go for help, let's get back to the main topic -- What Is RefWorks?

As we mentioned earlier, RefWorks is your personal database that allows you to store reference information and use that information to create a paper with in-text citations and a bibliography (or footnotes and endnotes).  That's not all RefWorks can do (and you'll have to read more of the help file and look at the other support materials above to learn more), but it's what we're going to focus on in this section.

To get started using RefWorks, there are a few things you'll want to focus on first:

• Creating Your Account (or Database)

• Getting References Into Your Database

• Organizing Your References

• Managing Your References

• Finding References In Your Database

• Creating A Bibliography And Formatting A Paper