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Mendeley Citation Manager: Getting Started

What is Mendeley?

Mendeley is a free citation management software program that lets you store and organize references. Mendeley also offers an academic resource search feature similar to Google Scholar.

Mendeley offers a few different options:

  • Mendeley Desktop: software to download to your computer
  • Mendeley Reference Manager: a cloud-based app 
  • Mendeley Web: features available through the Mendeley website

Mendeley Pros

  • search for articles using Mendeley Web (may not be available in full text)
  • has features for note taking and annotating PDF documents
  • notebook in Mendeley Reference Manager lets you collect your highlights and notes from multiple PDFs in one place
  • create in-text citations and reference lists

Mendeley Cons

  • may need to add PDFs to your Mendeley library manually

Get an overview

Get an overview of Mendeley by checking out the Getting Started Guides put together by the Mendeley team.

 

Note: Mendeley is just one of many citation management software options. The Walden University Library does not specifically endorse or recommend Mendeley over other available options.

Download Mendeley Desktop or Mendeley Reference Manager

Mendeley works with Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge browsers. Install the web importer for the Internet browser(s) you wish to use. Create a free account online to sync your resources and access them online. You can log in to your account through the Mendeley homepage.