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Mature study and retraining

Talk to other Mumsnetters who are considering a career change or are mature students.

Do I really need Endnote

21 replies

Altonbeck · 22/09/2025 16:47

Hi I’m 53 and about to start a masters, 32 years after my first degree.
I do not like IT but obviously will have to use it!!
My question is do I really need a reference management system?
My uni provides endnote but I’m having trouble installing it (DH has tried too) and tbh having looked at the training video it seems complicated to me and I’m wondering if the hassle of learning it is really worthwhile for a technophobe like me?!
Any advice? Thanks

OP posts:
mynameiscalypso · 22/09/2025 16:49

I work for a research institute and we’re just scrapped endnote because it was too complicated and didn’t work well. I don’t think you really need it so long as you’re diligent about recording your sources as you go. I am not and therefore spend an enormous amount of time at the end of writing a paper trying to re-trace my steps.

smallchange · 22/09/2025 16:59

Reference management systems are incredibly useful to keep track of things, remove duplicates, help with formating your bibliography, and if you get one with a cite-as-you-write tool they can help with managing your citations when you're writing up.

I've never got on with Endnote although I know people who love it. Have a look at one of the free tools such as Zotero or Mendelay and see if you find them easier to manage? There's also a tool that was called Sciwheel (now part of LeanLibrary so I think it's renamed) which has a free version if you're just using it for one project.

Ritasueandbobtoo9 · 22/09/2025 17:03

You can use use word, there is a manage references option on that!

medievalpenny · 22/09/2025 17:07

I used Zotero for my PG which was free and connects with web browsers and Microsoft Word.

I was initially sceptical and had similar thoughts to you, but the browser extension means you can save sources really easily with a few clicks and the plug-in with Word means that you just press a button to add in your in-text citations and at the end it produces your references list for you - all in the right format for whatever referencing system you're using. I assume Endnote has similar functionality.

It was an absolute godsend. I was dreading all the referencing and cross-checking the citations to the reference list and getting everything in the right format and right order because I found it soul destroying and time consuming when I did my UG pre-reference management software. Using Zotero was so, so very much better than when I did my UG with manual referencing. PG is much heavier on the research side so I'd been quite worried about that until they told me about RMS.

Unless you particularly enjoy writing out manual citations and reference lists and have an ungodly amount of spare time to do so, embrace it!

I wasn't very confident at first but once I got used to it, I found it so much better and gradually learnt how to do more and more with it. It removed a lot of unnecessary stress for me.

I would recommend using a reference management system - there are a few options, so you can find the one that suits you. I can't remember exactly why I went with Zotero, but I think it would have been because it looked like the easiest tool for what I wanted from it. I vaguely recall that the more complex options were pushed if you were considering progressing to doctoral research afterwards - which I definitely was not!

thedevilinablackdress · 22/09/2025 17:43

Yes you absolutely should use reference management software to take the hard graft out of referencing. I use and like EndNote, but many others are available.

Handsomesoapdish · 22/09/2025 17:46

I thought it was good. Everything you read wrote a paraphrased synopsis with your reference and citation. You can import references directly from a lot of the online journals and academic search engines. Cites easily in way more reference styles than word builds your reference list/bibliography. Very good.

AnonymousCatLady3 · 22/09/2025 17:51

I used the built-in citation elements in Word for all my assignments but then I had also kept copious notes & had numbered post-it tags in all my physical books / articles.

Refworks is another that some uni’s use - I found it easier than EndNote - more intuitive - but in the end I preferred to just keep notes and as I said use the version in Word.

Sarover · 22/09/2025 18:02

I did my phd recently, between the ages of 55 and 60. When I did my first degree 40 years ago I wrote my dissertation by hand! My MA dissertation was 15 years ago and I don’t remember anything being said about Endnote.
Like you, it seemed to be seen as compulsory to use it when I started my PhD and there was even a session on it in our research training and a discount offered by my uni. Despite being seen as ‘essential’ it didn’t seem to work well and didn’t actually save time. I abandoned it and just kept up with the referencing manually as I went along. In fact I did all my own checking, proof reading etc. without using any kind of programme or other human being. I also manually typed all my interview transcripts and/used Word referencing.
Very time consuming but I honestly think it made me very close to my thesis document and everything in it, which really helped when I did my viva. And I passed with minor corrections. To answer your question. No, Endnote is not essential.

Bananamanananana · 22/09/2025 18:08

I use zotero because my discipline uses oscola referencing style and it’s not in word.

I have the plug ins and the extensions and it’s really easy to use.

I have the free version. When I was running out of room I was going to pay for more storage but all I did was organised it all into relevant project folders and put it all into mendeley so it’s there if I need it but I can do new research and use zotero.

Its also better on the iPad than mendeley.

Octavia64 · 22/09/2025 18:11

You don’t need endnote but yes yes yes you need a reference management system,
I found zotero good

Bananamanananana · 22/09/2025 18:24

If you want to go paperless I recommend a tablet and a pen for it.

personally I use an iPad but other brands are available - I just happened to have one so I only needed to buy a pencil for it.

means you don’t need paper you can “write” notes and read on the tablet.

Altonbeck · 22/09/2025 19:25

Thank you all.
If I cannot get Endnote which is the best alternative out of Zotero or Mendeley? I guess what’s the easiest to pick up!!
Also my course is a taught masters could I get away with using cite them right or is it not enough?
Thanks so much. I’m more hung up on the IT than the course content 😌

OP posts:
medievalpenny · 22/09/2025 20:33

They're both free, I'd just take a look and see which you prefer then delete the other one. I personally chose Zotero out of Zotero, Mendeley and Endnote basic because it felt the easiest for me - but you're a different person to me.

Mine was a taught programme but a taught master's is still research heavy for assessments. Part of what they are teaching you on a taught masters is research skills. Don't make your life harder than it needs to be because of apprehension about software. It's not that bad and it will free you up to focus on the subject.

medievalpenny · 22/09/2025 20:38

This is kind of the advice I would give myself if I could go back in time, because I was initially of the view that "I'm not sure I need this newfangled software complicating things" until I got to my first assessment and saw the light. 😂

Bananamanananana · 22/09/2025 20:40

Oh I was the same. It changed my life.

I now do research every day and I have so many mega bites of info that I couldn’t even do on the £20 a year version of zotero. And mendeley is very buggy for Oscola.

so I keep my current research on zotero and my archive in mendeley

CrystalSingerFan · 22/09/2025 20:46

Good luck with your MA. I started my MA (part-time) with the OU in 2014, when I was 55. I wouldn't describe myself as tech-phobic and certainly played around with various tools, including EndNote. Didn't really get on with it/them.

As a PP said, you can just be diligent with your records. Plus, depending on your subject area, you might end up referencing physical old-school archive material so it helps to know the basics rather than outsourcing it all.

What's your subject? What convention are you using? Are you on Windows or MacOS? The OU required Harvard (Cite Them Rite?) for the BA and MHRA for the MA. Plus the textbooks used something else. People with subject-specific experience might offer more informed recommendations...

GreenSmithing · 22/09/2025 20:52

The best one is the one you find most, intuitive, yes.

You need some automated way of managing references for a taught masters, in my view, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, because at masters level, independent reading is expected. It's not enough just to use the reading list, so you'll need some way of tracking your additional sources.

Also, you're likely to be time pressured at some points as assignments become due. RM software is much faster than manual referencing. You don’t want to be spending hours typing out references when you've got another couple of pieces of work due, or losing marks because you submitted incompletely referenced work because you ran out of time.

It's also really easy otherwise to lose a key reference that you're hanging an argument on and not be able to find it again. At least if it's saved into your RMS and appropriately annotated you have a fighting chance of tracking it down.

And finally, correct referencing is part of demonstrating academic integrity. Increasingly, students are using generative AI, like chatgpt, to cheat. One of the things it does is to hallucinate/ make up fake references. So as an arse covering exercise, you need to make sure your references are correct. It's much easier to do that with an automated system that transfers the data into your documents than typing it in manually and risking transposing page numbers, or misspelling author names, and having the reference flagged as fake.

Genuinely, reference management software is not that hard to use once you've done it a couple of times. My advice would be to hit the ground running and start using it straight away. You don't want to be couple of months in with assignments due and then have to input 8 weeks worth of reading at once.

Bananamanananana · 22/09/2025 20:59

There’s a guy on you tube called Andy Stapleton who I follow who talks about ethical use of AI in research. It will save you time.

grentfeldwall · 22/09/2025 21:06

Usually university libraries will provide free training, its pretty good :)

CatHugger · 22/09/2025 22:26

Scientist DH much prefers Read Cube to EndNote. My OU degree used to doing manual references so finding using a tool for my masters very fiddly.

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