Mendeley Basics
Answer
Mendeley is a reference management suite available to students, faculty, and staff of Governors State University.
To learn more about Mendeley’s features and how to use them, please use the following links:
How to Sign In/Set up Your Mendeley Account
Adding and Organizing References in Mendeley
Citing and Annotating References in Mendeley
To sign into Mendeley, first go to https://www.mendeley.com/
When you’re there, find where it says to sign in. Click Sign In and use your university email and password. If this is your first time using Mendeley and you need help setting up your account, you can view the tutorial here.
Upon signing in, you’ll be brought to a new screen where you can either browse Mendeley’s database of article, manage your account, or access your reference Library.
Navigating the Reference Library
The picture below shows what the Reference Library looks like. Mendeley comes with several tools to help you organize all your references.
The home page of your Reference Library shows all the references you have saved by default.
You can use the left-hand sidebar to navigate the library as well as create new collections and groups.
The green dot next to a reference means that it is unread. The star next to a reference can be used to favorite a reference.
You can use the column headings to sort your references.
If your reference has a file attached, an icon will show up in the “File” column next to the reference. If the icon looks like a document with an arrow that means the file is available for downloading in Mendeley. If the icon is checkmark in a green circle, it indicates that the file has been downloaded in Mendeley.
Searching the Reference Library
To search your library for a specific source, find the search box in the upper right-hand corner of the library. Click on “Search” and it will bring up the search bar where you can enter search terms.
To filter your search or to sort your references by tags, click on “Filter” in the upper right-hand corner. When the filter menu comes up you can either filter by author or you can filter by tags.
When you click on a specific tag, it’ll filter your search so that only references with that specific tag are visible. You can select as many tags as you want to find the reference you’re looking for.
Info Tab
When you click on a reference, it will bring up the Info Tab. The Info Tab is where you can view and edit the information and files for a specific reference.
The first information listed is the title of the reference and the author, you can click on the title or author to edit them, and you can click on “Add additional information” to enter more information (publisher, chapter title, etc.). If all the additional information is filled in, there will be an option to view more info.
Some references might have abstracts that you can add to Mendeley by selecting “Add text” and pasting the abstract text there.
You’re also able to add a PDF of the texts or other files to your reference’s entry. To add a file, click on the plus sign next to “Files” and then select the file from your documents.
Likewise, you can add a URL that links to the reference or URLs to associated materials.
The Info Tab is also where you can add Tags to your references which will aid you in searching and filtering your reference library. To learn more about tags, see Adding and Organizing References in Mendeley.
