Mendeley: Organize and Cite Sources

The best way to add sources to Mendeley is by using their web importer. This is a web browser plug-in that can recognize information about a journal article, ebook, or website when you are viewing the source in a database or web page. (Information about installing the web importer was available through the link on the "Getting Started with Mendeley page of this guide.)

When you are on a web page with the full text of a source:

1. Click the web importer icon. This will usually be in the upper right corner of your web browser, but it could look different depending on what browser you use. (The image above is from Firefox.)
2. Use the drop down menu to select the collection you want to save the source inside (if applicable).
3. Check that the information about the title, author, journal, date, etc matches the information you see on the web page. If it does not, click on the title to edit the information before importing to Mendeley.
4. Click the blue "Add" button.

You can also add sources to Mendeley manually. You will often need to do this for print sources or for uncommon online sources such as PDFs of reports. (You can also use this method if the web importer doesn't work.)

Follow these steps:

1. Click the "Add new" button in the upper left hand corner of your Mendeley library.
2. Select "Add reference manually" from the bottom of the list.
3. Select your source's format from the "Reference Type" drop down menu.
4. Type all the information you have into the open text fields.
5. Click the "Add Entry" button.

You can transfer a library of sources into Mendeley from other citation managers like RefWorks or Zotero. This process will only send over the information needed to cite a source such as authors, title, and publication date. If you have been storing PDFs in the other tool you will need to move them separately.

Although the process will vary slightly between different tool, this is the general process for moving sources into Mendeley.

1. In your current citation manager, find the option to export sources.
2. Export your library of sources as a .ris file. This is the file format used by all major citation managers.
3. Locate this file on your computer. It will usually go into your Downloads folder.
4. Open Mendeley.
5. Click the "Add new" button in the upper left hand corner of your Mendeley library.
6. Click "Import Library" from the list of options and select RIS from the resulting drop-down menu.
7. Upload the .ris that you downloaded from your old citation manager.

If you have difficulty finding the export option in your current citation manager, look up their help guides online.