ICS 1-3 EIP Tutorial

Mendeley is a free reference manager and PDF organizer; it's also a research networking site that puts you in touch with an international community.

Use Mendeley to:

• save and organize research articles and docs (about 3,000 PDFs in the free version);

• annotate (add your own notes and highlights to) sections of interest in saved articles;

• generate reference lists and citations for reports and papers.

Make sure to install the Word plug-in and Web Importer which are the real powers behind Mendeley.

First-time setup takes about 15-20 minutes depending on your computer's download speed. Here are the basic steps:

1. Go to Mendeley.com and click the "Create Account" button on the top right side of the page. Follow the steps to create an Elsevier account, which is the host of Mendeley.

2. Install the Mendeley Reference Manager; this is where Mendeley will keep and organize all your references, PDFs, and documents. 

3. Install the Web Importer Tool, and add to your browser's toolbar; this makes adding PDFs from the web a piece of cake!

4. OPTIONAL: Download the Mendeley Application to your laptop or desktop computer. There is nothing wrong with using the desktop app, but the Mendeley Reference Manager can handle everything you need.

5. If you plan to use Mendeley to generate citations, you will either need to download the Mendeley desktop app (which can generate citations in desktop MS Word) and add the citation plug-in there, OR download Mendeley Cite here to use in MS Word online.

5. Mendeley updated in 2021 so if you're downloading for the first time, you don't need to do this but if you have an older version on your machine, make sure you follow this next step too:

Very important for 1st-time setup: select the Organize my files option when configuring Mendeley Desktop!

• This ensures any PDFs you add will be stored in Mendeley's data directory; otherwise, a PDF you've added to Mendeley can vanish when you delete the original file from your computer.
• Mendeley can then rename the PDF in a logical manner using the article title and author name.

--On MS Windows, open Mendeley Desktop and select: Tools > Options > File Organizer, then check Organize my files.

--On Mac OSX, open Mendeley Desktop and select: Mendeley Desktop > Preferences… > File Organizer, then check Organize my files.

As you add documents to your Mendeley Library, you'll quickly see the importance of organizing your files! You can also organize your articles into collections, and create groups, in order to share articles when working on group assignments  Watch this video for some tips.

Another reason to love Mendeley - did you know Mendeley will create citations for you automatically, including those in AMA style?  For the easiest way to do this, see  the video below

We have a guide for that!  Check out: http://bastyr.libguides.com/mendeley