Docear Citation Helper

Docear is a free citation helper designed to do a lot of the tedious parts of academic writing. It is available for numerous operating systems from Windows to Linux and Mac. Furthermore, the citation helper also includes a free MS Word add-in. With Docear, you can:

• Sort documents into categories
•  Sort annotations (comments, bookmarks, and highlighted text from PDFs) into categories
•  Sort annotations within PDFs
•  Again, view multiple annotations of multiple documents, in multiple categories – at once.
• Combine several tools in a single application (pdf management, reference management, mind mapping, etc.).
• Capture metadata from pdf documents
• Discover new literature which is recommended to you by the citation helper
• Also, navigate between reference managers like Mendeley to Docear, for example.

Starting your Docear Citation Helper

Step 1: Register

Before you go any further, you are required to install Docear. Simply download from docear.org then install by following the prompts. While at it, you may install the MS Word plug-in as well.

Your relationship with Docear will start will registration. You may use it without registering but your access to features will be limited. You will not have access to literature recommendations, metadata retrieval, and backup of your data. At the same time, if you do register, you should be aware that Docear is enabled to analyze your data.

Step 2: Set up your citation helper

If you are starting from scratch, that is, without any data stored:

• Firstly, select ‘start from scratch’
• Select a project name with which you will be able to identify that particular project.
• Afterward, select a project home. The project home is the folder that shall contain all your data including PDFs, images, Excel sheets, etc. An appropriate project home could be, for instance, “c:\University\”, or “\My Documents\Work\”, or “\Dropbox\PhD Stuff\

If you have already some data on your hard drive that you want to use with Docear:

• Select ‘use existing pdfs…’
• Enter the project name
• Enter the project home then click on ‘browse’
• Choose a pdf-reader

Docear interface

The menu bar contains a few ribbons, each with several functions. It includes home, references, resources, etc.

The workspace panel serves as your ‘control center’. It lists all your projects and other items like drafts and downloads. Hence, on this panel, you can find the library which is the platform on which you can organize your resources. There will also be a reference database and a folder containing all your files.

The reference panel lists your references in a table, similar to other “classic” reference managers.

The mind map window is your primary working area. This will be a skeleton of your work which will help you organize your information and where you can add new ideas.

The note panel allows you to create additional notes. By default, it’s hidden. To show it, select “View -> Elements -> Show note panel” in the menu.

Step 3: Resource management

• Start by organizing your resources on the mind map:
• Open the map by double-clicking it in the workspace panel.
• Create a few categories that reflect your research interests (just create a few, it doesn’t have to be perfect).

To create a new category, click on an existing node and…

• Start typing on your keyboard, to overwrite the existing node.
• Then, select “New child” in the menu to create a new child node, or press the INSERT key on your keyboard.
• Finally, select “New sibling” to create a sibling node on the same level as the currently selected node. Alternatively, press ENTER on your keyboard.
• Select “Edit (in-line)”, double-click a node, or press F2, to edit a node in-line.
• Press DEL on your keyboard to delete a node

Step 4: Referencing your work

Select a pdf then click on ‘create or update reference’

Then, you can either manually specify all the data (“Create blank entry linking the PDF”) or try to retrieve metadata from Docear’s Digital Library.

Using the MS Word plug-in

• To copy references to MS Word, you first need to select the references you want to copy in your mind map or reference panel. You can select multiple references (i.e. the corresponding nodes) by holding the CTRL key pressed.
• Then, select “Copy reference key(s)” in the menu. This will copy the keys to your clipboard. If you have selected multiple references, all keys are copied to your clipboard, separated by commas (key1, key2, key3, …).
• In Microsoft Word (after you installed Docear4Word), place your cursor where you want to insert a reference and select “Add Reference” in the menu.

A new dialog opens that shows you a list of all your references. If you have copied the references’ BibTeX key(s) to your clipboard in Docear, the “D->D4W” button will be active. You can press it, and all corresponding references will be selected automatically. Alternatively, select the references manually by clicking the check box. With the filter field, you can filter your list. You may also choose whether to insert the reference in a standard format, e.g. [1] or (AUTHOR et al. 2010), the author only, the year only, or author and year with only the year being in brackets.

• Thereafter, you place your cursor where you want to insert your list of references, and chose “Insert Bibliography” in the menu.
• Finally, you can change the citation style by choosing it from the Style list. Docear4Word has only a few styles pre-installed. If the one you need is not on that list, choose here from more than 1700 citation styles.

Assignment Essays makes use of the Docear citation helper to ensure that your paper is the best it can be. Contact us today for assistance.