We all know when you write a paper for an assignment, you likely have to include references. But while you’re composing ideas and thoughts together, it’s hard to keep track of references through all the changes, constantly adding to and deleting from your draft – how do you keep them straight? Do you format now? Format later? Hope you didn’t just delete a reference you needed? 

I used to format everything correctly using a citation generator as I was still writing my first drafts and getting my thoughts together. After a couple of papers using this method, I found that I was using up too much time getting everything formatted right, when often I’d end up deleting half of the sources I used (since I have a habit of making my papers too long in my first drafts, meaning I have to delete a bunch of things and rewrite for cohesiveness before its ready to submit). But with lots of practice, I’ve found a method that works well for me.

I’ll give you the process I now use to keep track of my references when I write papers, using examples from a paper I wrote very recently for my PhD application.

1. In the beginning, don’t worry about format. 

When I start gathering information for my paper, I try to divide it by section/topic. Then I grab my info, reformat to how I want it, and then mark which reference belongs where. For example:

Motivation is “a predictor for learning, academic success, persistence, or continuation in a study and well being.” (KUSURKAR)

So now, no matter where I move this reference, or cut and edit to fit what I’m trying to say, I know that the information in that sentence came from the source written by Kusurkar. And, since I’m not worried about formatting right now, at the bottom of my section, I write:

KUSURKAR link to article here. 

Enough information I can find the paper again when I need to, but not too much that I get overwhelmed with complete references and an incomplete paper.

2. Edit by section.

After I have a very rough first draft, I go through, section by section, and edit in small chunks. Once I have a section that I think works great for me, I re-evaluate the list of references I have at the bottom of that section. If I have ended up deleting a reference during my edits, then I delete the reference. Depending on the size of your sections, this may be a pretty easy task to compare the names in your text to the names in your basic reference list. If you have much larger sections, you may need to use the very handy control+F function to search for the last name. If it’s only found in your reference list, then you know you can delete that reference.

3. Now you can worry about formatting.

Now that you have a final list of what sources you’ve used, you can use a reference manager or citation generator to get rid of the basic:

KUSURKAR link to article here. 

And instead, at the end of the paper in the references section, have:

Kusurkar, R. (2012). Motivation in medical students: a PhD thesis report. Perspectives on Medical Education, 1(3), 155-157. 

4. Double-check your final draft. 

Once you finish your paper, have everything formatted right (both in text and end of paper citations), I use control+F to double check that I have all of my references. I go through my paper, and make sure I don’t have an extra source I didn’t use (delete!) or go back through my paper and make sure I don’t have an extra source in-text that’s not in the final reference list. Taking a few minutes to double check you don’t have any errors is definitely worth the time. 

Citation managers are useful, as depending on which one you use and how it integrates into your word processor, it automatically creates a reference list based on your in-text citations (which, of course, now you need to format properly as well). But I found that it made my paper too cluttered and I would get overwhelmed and confused with what information I did and didn’t have in my paper, and this method seems to really help me keep it streamlined and keep me less stressed. 

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