RefWorks: A Basic Guide
1. Go to Cook Library Website:
http://cooklibrary.towson.edu/
2. Under “Quick Tools” to the left, Click on “RefWorks”
3. You are redirected to RefWorks website, select “Sign Up for a New Account”
4. Step 1: Account information
a. Be sure to use your towson student email account
b. Choose a RefWorks login name and password
5. Step 2: User information
a. You have to give your name and Area of Focus
b. Type of user (Undergraduate student) and
c. The code thingy to verify you are human
6. You should now gain access to your account and see the following screen
7. You can explore the various refWorks features on your own or you can click “support center” in
the upper right corner.
8. Type “tutorial” in the Find Help box
9. Among the selections, you should start out with this one…
10. After completing this tutorial and creating a database on your topic, you should learn about the
‘Write and cite’ feature. Of the 11 search results on the topic the two below go over the basics…
11. Basically, Write-and-Cite is a little program that you install locally on your computer. It interacts
with word processing software like MS-Word, and allows you to insert citations from your
database as you write and, the best feature of all, when you complete a draft of your
introduction in this case, you can click a button and it generates a perfect APA ref list at the end
of your document. So please take advantage of this new technology.
12. If you choose not to download Write-and-Cite, there is another way to copy/paste citation codes
(note they are not in APA style) to the text in an open Word document (or other word
processing program). Find a reference you want to cite (or you can cite several at a time) and in
the upper right corner of the gray REF ID line you will see the “{ }” icon. When you click the icon
it opens the citation viewer and has added a coded version of the citation to the box… e.g.,
If there are other references that you want to add to the citation in your text then you can just
click on other “{ }” for those references and it will add it to your citation viewer until you decide
to hit the clear button, e.g.,
After you have all the refs you want in the citation viewer you should then highlight the contents
and copy/paste to your word document. For example, at the end of this sentence I have pasted
the contents from the citation viewer as seen above {{249 Amsel,A. 1958; 90 Anagnostaras,S.G.
1995; 313 Alvarado,M.C. 1995; 288 Alexander,G.E. 1986; 141 Bachevalier,J. 1996;}}. Again, this
is not a proper APA citation but a code referring to references in your database so that when
you are finished writing you can click a button and have the program convert the codes to
proper APA citations and add the reference list to the end of your document.
13. Go to the top of RefWorks and click “Bibliography” and select “format document.” A box will
appear giving you options on what style to use and to select a document to format. Make sure
you have saved your Word document before clicking on “select a file” otherwise it will not
include your most recent work/changes/additions.
You can select either the 5th or 6th edition of AP style (I prefer the 5th) for your paper.
14. When you Click “select a file” navigate to the correct directory and choose the name of the file
you are editing. The screen turns gray and a processing box appears in the lower right corner.
15. If you are successful then a green “completed” box replaces the blue “processing” box and you
are given the option to save or open the NEW file, which the default on my computer identifies
as “FINAL – followed by the old name”
16. You should always keep the original file as you work on your paper so that you can add citations
and references and then redo step 15 to get the latest “FINAL-” version of your paper.
17. In the final version of this document, where we added a group of sham citations to the end of
the sentence in step 14, the FINAL file text looks as follows with an APA style reference list
added to the end. By using the RefWorks program you will ensure that you get perfect APA
style and that your citations in text will ALL appear in the reference section of your paper (I am
After you have all the refs you want in the citation viewer you should then highlight the
contents and copy/paste to your word document. For example, at the end of this
sentence I have pasted the contents from the citation viewer as seen above (Alexander,
DeLong, & Strick, 1986; Alvarado & Rudy, 1995; Amsel, 1958; Anagnostaras, Maren, &
Fanselow, 1995; Bachevalier & Meunier, 1996). Again, this is not a proper APA citation
but a code referring to references in your database so that when you are finished writing
you can click a button and have the program convert the codes to proper APA citations
and add the reference list to the end of your document. For example,
References
Alexander, G. E., DeLong, M. R., & Strick, P. L. (1986). Parallel organization of functionally
segregated circuits linking basal ganglia and cortex. Annu Rev Neurosci, 9, 357-81.
Alvarado, M. C., & Rudy, J. W. (1995). A comparison of kainic acid plus colchicine and ibotenic
acid-induced hippocampal formation damage on four configural tasks in rats. Behav
Neurosci, 109(6), 1052-62.
Amsel, A. (1958). The role of frustrative nonreward in noncontinuous reward situations. Psychol
Bull, 55(2), 102-19.
Anagnostaras, S. G., Maren, S., & Fanselow, M. S. (1995). Scopolamine selectively disrupts the
acquisition of contextual fear conditioning in rats. Neurobiol Learn Mem, 64(3), 191-4.
Bachevalier, J., & Meunier, M. (1996). Cerebral ischemia: Are the memory deficits associated
with hippocampal cell loss? Hippocampus, 6(5), 553-60.
looking for a 100% match and points will be deducted if that is not the case). Please take some
time to learn RefWorks! In the long run, it saves time because you do not have to type all the
references by hand, you won’t make APA errors or mistakes by including or forgetting to include
some of the citations to the reference list in the end.