Every time you get results from a database or a source, you will need to record them and manage them. This process needs to happen before you can de-duplicate your results and then go on to appraise and analyse them. Read the information and watch the video below to see how this process works using bibliographic software called EndNote.
Endnote: for managing your references
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EndNote is a piece of bibliographic management software, to help store and organise your research results. It allows you to add your references, in a wide range of styles, to your Word documents. It is available on all University cluster PCs. Off-campus access is available via the Remote Application Service ('RAS') - http://ras.ncl.ac.uk. There is also an online version My EndNote Online.
- Use EndNote to manage references. Clearly keep track of how many records you get at each stage and you can group them in their own groups clearly identified in EndNote (a separate group for each database_ or you could create separate EndNote libraries. For example, PsychInfo results library and a separate Scopus Library.
- You may have to add grey literature into EndNote by hand. Look at the EndNote guides to remind you how to do this.
- When de-duplicating – make sure you keep the number of records you had before you did this from the different databases. Again you may want to use different groups or folders or EndNote libraries in order to preserve the original records.
- Use the PRISMA flow diagram to keep a record of the numbers of records as you go along http://www.prisma-statement.org
At end of process, will be expected to have at least one record of a full search that you carried out, so keep all the database / grey literature searches as well. These get put in the appendices of your literature search.
Look at this blog post if you need to know How to find a random set of citations in EndNote.
De-duplicating your results in EndNote
See our Library FAQ with a video on how to de-duplicate your references in EndNote.
Links to relevant topic guides
