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Systematic Reviews

This guide describes all steps involved in the conduct of a systematic review

Reference managing

Managing your references before, during and after the writing process is highly important for insuring transparency and reproducibility. For this, there are several management tools, such as EndNote (paid) (also see our Endnote LibGuide for further information) or Mendeley(free) . What are the benefits for using a reference management tool:

  • Importing your citations from literature databases (i.e. PubMed or Web of Science))
  • Annotating your references
  • Organising your references into groups
  • Removing duplicate references found in multiple databases
  • Adding full-text documents to your references
  • Automatically insert well-formatted citations into Word
  • Automatically reformat citation style in one click

The Vrije Universiteit and AmsterdamUMC have a license to use EndNote. For a full guide on EndNote check our What is EndNote? - EndNote - LibGuides at VU Amsterdam

 

What are the main differences between EndNote and Mendeley?

  Endnote Mendeley
License Payment* / Online less advanced options is free Free
Institutional support* Yes No
Desktop ✓ ✓
Organising structure Reference (group) based Folder based
Writing a Systematic review Highly recommended Not recommended
Collaboration Demanding Very Easy
Importing references Easy Stringent
Importing PDF’s Stringent, depending on the publisher Stringent
Annotate PDF’s Yes Yes
Deduplication Very Easy Demanding
Archiving Library Possible to save on different platforms Not possible
Saving space Unlimited, depending on free space on computer 2 Gb online or unlimited with subscription
Learning curve Shallow Steep
Editing output/citation styles Output Styles Changing citation styles
Resources Endnote Libguide Guides