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Reference Management Software

Citavi, Zotero, and More

Reference management software supports you through every step of the academic writing process—from initial literature research to the final term paper or thesis. These programs help you organize your sources clearly, cite them correctly, and automatically generate bibliographies.

In our training sessions (mainly in German), you’ll learn more about academic writing using these tools.



Collecting and Managing References

  • Importing references from library catalogs, databases, and the Internet
  • Centralized storage of all sources in one place
  • Management of PDFs and full-text documents

Citing Sources and Creating Bibliographies

  • Automatically insert citations into word processing programs
  • Create complete bibliographies
  • Support for common citation styles (e.g., APA, Chicago, Harvard)

Stay Organized and Keep Track 

  • Organizing references with keywords, categories, and notes
  • Linking citations to your own notes
  • Support for planning and organizing writing projects

Flexible work, alone or in a team

  •  Synchronization of reference data across multiple devices (depending on the software)
  • Collaborative work on research projects, e.g., for group assignments

Reference Management Software

Members of Freie Universität Berlin can use several reference management software programs free of charge.

Easy to use – especially suitable for beginners. Citavi helps you organize your knowledge: you can link citations to your own content.

Zotero is a free reference management program and can be used as an alternative to Citavi.
To take full advantage of its features, we recommend using a laptop or desktop computer. 

EndNote offers extensive formatting templates and enables data exchange via EndNote Web – ideal for academic papers and group projects.

Note: The EndNote license held by Freie Universität Berlin expires in April 2027 and will not be renewed. The Citavi software, including Citavi Web, remains available as an alternative. It is also suitable for Mac users.

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