C6.4 Automated Reference Generation
What Reference Management Software Automatically Generates Citations for UK Essays?
Writing a 3,000-word essay is manageable. When I first studied abroad, it took me a month to finish a 3,000-word essay—filled with stress, anxiety, and confusion. Later, things changed: I could complete 6,000 words in a week, and even a few thousand words in a day when inspiration struck. The key to sparking inspiration is to read extensively—relevant books, news articles, journals, and more—and these become the references in your essay.
For a 3,000-word essay, the number of references is relatively small (at most a dozen), so you can manually copy, paste, edit, format, and sort them one by one. You can easily adjust the references to meet your university or instructor’s required format. Previous guides have covered details such as what references are, how to avoid plagiarism, what to do if plagiarism is detected, and common plagiarism checkers.
However, a 15,000-word essay requires dozens of references—manual formatting is impractical, tiring, and time-consuming. This is when automatic reference generation software becomes essential.
What are the top automatic reference generation tools?
Cite This For Me
Free tool that automatically generates references (supports both English and Chinese). It also offers plagiarism checking, grammar, and spelling detection.
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EndNote
Paid reference management software that integrates directly with Microsoft Word. It supports multiple citation styles and is highly convenient for organizing references.
RefWorks
When dealing with a large number of references, manually copying, pasting, and formatting each one is tedious and time-consuming. I recommend refworks.com—it’s user-friendly for collecting and organizing all your references, especially when the volume is high. It’s free to use via Coventry University’s institutional login. If you’re unfamiliar with this platform, you can use Google Scholar instead—simply click the "Cite" button to generate references in various formats.
Google Scholar
When you find a source you want to use, Google Scholar can automatically generate citations in various formats. You can directly copy and paste them into your essay.