Use RefGrab-It to Download your PubMed Results

If you've used a citation software, like RefWorks, you know that it takes a few steps to get a citation from PubMed into your citation software. It's a multi-step process that requires saving your citations in PubMed first as a text file before importing into RefWorks or EndNote.

Click this link to see this traditional method.

BUT if you have a RefWorks account, you can actually use the RefGrab-It feature to capture citations in PubMed. This allows you to completely by-pass the traditional method of saving a text file before importing.

You can do this one citation at a time, or as I prefer, if you have several citations, send them to the Clipboard in PubMed and then use RefGrab-It to import into RefWorks.

Watch this narrated video to see how.

RefGrab-It to Cite Information from the Web

So, you've found an article or book that would be perfect to cite in your research. What's a fast and easy way to capture and create a citation from that website?

Here's an idea:

The citation management software, RefWorks, has a RefGrab-It feature that allows you to import information from any website into RefWorks.

Downloading RefGrab-It bookmarklet to your browser:

(1) Go to https://refworks.com/Refworks/newuser.asp to set up a new account if do not already have one. [If off-campus, log into VPN and Network Connect first; RefWorks is free to UCSF users because the Library has a site licence.]

(2) Go to http://www.refworks.com/refworks/BookMarklet.asp to download the bookmarklet


Watch this video showing how to use the RefGrab-It tool to easily import the web citation into your RefWorks account.

Google Quick Tip #5

Many of you have probably searched Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) to find research papers and other scholarly publications. As you come across interesting material, did you know that you can easily send them to your RefWorks or EndNote account?

GOOGLE QUICK TIP #5

Follow these three steps to set up this feature in any browser window:

(1) In Google Scholar, select the Scholar Preferences in the upper right of the page
(2) On the Preferences page, scroll down to the bottom, select the option for Show links to import citations into, and in the dropdown menu, select the appropriate bibliographic management software that you use (ie, RefWorks)

(3) Select the Save Preferences link

Returning to your Google Scholar search results, you will see a new link under each result that reads Import into RefWorks. Selecting that link will open a new browser window prompting me to sign into my RefWorks account. View this brief demo.

This feature will work in any browser window. So if you are searching on a computer that is not yours, you can easily save these same settings when you open a Google Scholar window and follow the steps described above.

Remember that if you are a member of UCSF, you can create a RefWorks account for free since the UCSF Library has purchased a site license.

Managing Your References

As you start to find interesting articles, you want to make sure you have a place where you can store these citations since you went through the hard work of searching for them.

RefWorks is a popular tool to manage your citations. And, if you are a UCSF faculty, staff, or student, you can set up an account for free because the UCSF Library has a site license for RefWorks. There is a great tutorial to help you get started.

EndNote is the most well-known bibliographic management software. If you are affiliated with UCSF, you get a discount if you purchase it from the UCSF Technology Store. There are helpful tutorials that walk you through how to use it

These types of software not only allow you to store your citations in one place, but when you are writing a paper, you can access your citations and insert the references as you write. Once you start using bibliographic management software, you won't believe that you were able to live without it all these years!