Slides of a workshop presented for the postgraduate training series on using Mendeley for Reference Management

1. Mendeley for Reference
Management
7 F E B R U A RY 2 0 1 9
ElizabethMoll-Willard SiboMrwashu
Librarian:ResearchCommons JuniorLibrarian:Law
emw@sun.ac.za smrwashu@sun.ac.za

2. In this session we’ll be looking at
1. Creating a Mendeley account
2. Installing Mendeley Desktop
3. Importing References
4. Importing, reading and annotating PDF’s
5. Using Mendeley’s MS Word plugin
2

3. 3
Creating an account
1. Visit www.mendeley.com
2. Click “create account” in the top right corner
3. Enter your email address and continue
4. Enter your Name, surname and create a password
5. Click Register
6. Your online account is ready

4. 4
www.mendeley.com

5. 5
Insert your email address here

6. 6
Insert your
details

7. 7
Your account is now created!

8. 8
Installing Mendeley Desktop
1. Visit www.mendeley.com
2. Click “download” in the top right corner
3. The download page will open
4. Select your Operating System and the download will
start
5. Double click the file to run the installer
6. Once installed, open the Desktop app and sing in

9. 9

10. 10

11. 11
Once you’ve completed your installation, open the Desktop app
and sign in using your Mendeley details
Use the same
email address
and password
you used to sign
up

12. 12
When you’ve signed in, Mendeley will prompt you to install the
MS Word Citation Plugin

13. Importing References
13
1. Directly from Mendeley Research Catalogue
2. Directly from online Databases
3. While browsing webpages
4. Watch Folder
5. Drag & drop PDF’s
6. Information from another program (BIBTEX, RIS)
7. Manual

14. Importing References
14
Importing References from the
Mendeley Research Catalogue

15. 15
From within Mendeley Desktop, select Literature
search from the left hand menu

16. 16
Search for your article within the search box

17. 17
Select the reference and add it to your library on
the right

18. 18
The blue tick shows publications that are in your
Library already

19. Importing References
19
Exporting Directly from
online Databases

20. 20
EbscoHost – Once you’ve conducted your search,
you will see the export option in the record

21. 21
Export the citation using either RIS or BibTex
format and a file will download

22. 22
From Mendeley Desktop, select Add, and import
the downloaded file

23. 23
From Mendeley Desktop, select Add, and import
the downloaded file

24. 24
Once added, the citation will be in your library.
Always review to make sure that the data is correct

25. Importing References
25
Web importer

26. Importing References
26
Installing the web importer:
1. From Mendeley desktop, select Tools
2. Select Install Web importer
3. Install on the Web browser that you use

27. 27
Select tools, install web importer

28. 28
Install the browser plug-in

29. 29

30. 30
Google Scholar – Once you’ve conducted your
search, open the article page

31. 31
Once you’ve opened the article page, click the
Mendeley Desktop button

32. 32
The web importer window will open up, sign in using
your Mendeley details

33. 33
Review the citation details

34. 34
If the PDF is available, you will be able to download
it with the citation

35. 35
Once you’ve reviewed the citation information, save
the reference and it will be added to your library

36. Importing References
36
The web importer is also active on many databases,
especially the Elsevier databases:
 Scopus
 Science Direct
 Engineering Village
 Knovel
 Reaxys

37. 37
Science Direct –you can export multiple records
by selecting the record you would like to export

38. 38
Click export, and a direct export to Mendeley
will be available from the dropdown menu

39. 39
The Mendeley web importer will open in another
window, select sign in and log on with you details

40. 40
Once you've signed in, you will see your library
on the left with the latest imported files

41. 41
You can also export an individual record from
within the record page

42. Importing References
42
Watch Folder

43. Importing References
43
The Mendeley Watch Folder allows you to save PDF
documents to a specific folder, which is automatically
imported by Mendeley
1. In Mendeley Desktop, select File
2. Select Watch Folder
3. Choose the folder that Mendeley should “watch”

44. 44

45. 45
Select your watch folder from the file structure

46. 46
Syncing your Desktop app will import all references
in the watch folder
Note:
• Older documents
may simply be
scanned and will
not import
• Born digital files
contain the
metadata that
allows the import
of the citation data

47. Importing References
47
Drag and Drop

48. Importing References
48
If you have a collection of PDF documents, they can simply
be dragged and dropped into Mendeley

49. 49
Select the files and drag across

50. 50
2 documents dragged into Mendeley

51. Importing References
51
Information from another program

52. Importing References
52
• RIS, BibTEX and XML are commons formats used to
export citations from another database or programme.
• It can be used to export citations from another
Reference Management tool

53. 53
Google Scholar – Once you’ve conducted your
search, you will see the cite button at the bottom

54. 54
Clicking the cite button will open the cite box, now
select your citation export style (BibTex)

55. 55
Clicking the BibTex option will open the record in
another window, right click and save page as a Text
document

56. 56
Save the file as a Text document

57. 57
No upload the file to Mendeley Desktop,

58. 58
You will see the file in your Library, remember to review
and edit the citation

59. Importing References
59
Manually

60. 60
Click ‘Add’ and select Add entry manually

61. 61
The form will open, complete the relevant fields as
thoroughly and accurately as possible

62. Annotating PDF’s
62
Mendeley allows you to attach PDF’s to your citations
Using Mendeley’s built in reader, you are able to comment
and highlight within the PDF viewer
1. Adding PDF’s to citations
2. Highlighting and commenting

63. 63
Select the citation and click on add files below the Files
field in the citation

64. 64
Select the file from your file structure and insert, the file
will be added to the citation

65. 65
Double clicking the file once attached to the citation,
open it in the reader, where you can comment, highlight
etc.

66. 66
Changes are automatically saves, simply press the X to
close the viewer

67. Using the MS WORD plugin
67
Use Mendeley’s MS Word plugin for
• In-text citation
• Reference list

68. 68
To install the MS Word plugin, go to Tools and select
install MS Word plugin

69. 69
Now that you’ve installed the plugin, open a Word
document and select the References menu at the top

70. 70
Here you will see all the Mendeley options available
with the plugin

71. 71
Before starting, make sure that you are using the correct
Citation Style

72. 72
Select more styles from the drop down list if you do not
see the Citation Style that you want to use

73. 73
This will open the Mendeley Citation Style box, search
for the style you want, or select ‘get more styles’ to
install another style

74. 74
Insert in-text citations where needed by clicking on the
‘insert citation button’

75. 75
This will open the citation selector box, where you can
search for the specific citation to insert

76. 76
Select a single or multiple citations and click ok

77. 77
The Mendeley plugin will insert your citation in the
citation style specified

78. 78
To insert a page number, click on the citation and then
“edit citation”

79. 79
Click on the citation, and then put the page numbers in.

80. 80
You will then see the page number:
You can also suppress the author, also using “edit
citation”:

81. 81
To insert your reference list, select ‘Insert Bibliography’,
and the Mendeley plugin will insert your Reference list

82. A few tips:
82
References managers do not replace knowledge
Garbage in, Garbage out (check and edit your citations)
Search for styles before customizing another style
All databases work differently (Direct export, RIS,
BIBTEX)
Import from Google a last resort

83. Thank you
83
Email: emw@sun.ac.za
smrwashu@sun.ac.za
Library Guide:
http://libguides.sun.ac.za/mendeley