Office 2007 Reference and Citation Engine
Basics
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With the release of Office 2007 their have been numerous features that are brand new to the office suite, and the reference/citation engine in Microsoft Office Word is one of these features. This quicknote will assist in using the citation engine and will focus on creating Works Cited/Bibliography pages within Microsoft Word.
References Ribbon Tab
The references tab is located only in Microsoft Word and is the fourth tab of the Office Ribbon at the top of the application. This Reference Tab provides various features such as Table of Contents, Figures, Footnotes, and most importantly Citations & Bibliographies. The Citation & Bibliography features can be found in the group of the same name in the Reference Tab. The group is then divided into four parts.
- Insert Citation – After sources are added through the Manage Sources dialog, quick links will show in this section for easy citations in research papers.
- Manage Sources – All sources that will be used for a specified research paper will be added through this dialog. The application keeps a history of all previous sources used for other papers and any changes made in this dialog should immediately be changed in the rest of the paper.
- Style – At the time this article was written, Micrsoft Office Word provides 10 writing standards that can be changed instantly. These changes will affect citations/bibliographies/works cited. The two more common standards that are available MLA and APA.
- Bibliography/Works Cited – This button allows you to instantly add a works cited page to the open document based on the sources in use with the open document.
Managing Sources
The heart of the Citations & Bibliography engine is the Manage Sources dialog. This dialog allows you to preview any sources already added through this dialog and allows you to add/edit/delete as many sources as necessary.
Creating Sources
The add/edit dialog for managing sources is pretty straight forward. Their is a toggle at the top of the dialog (1) that can switch the type of the source that you are currently editing. The bottom of the dialog (2) displays the proper format of the content that should be entered in the respective field.
Inserting Works Cited/Bibliography
To insert the Works Cited or Bibliography to your paper, you will have to select either of them from the Bibliography button in the Citations & Bibliography group of the Reference tab. Keep in mind that on occasions you will have to manually update the reference page by clicking inside of the reference portion and clicking Update Citations & Bibliography.
Inserting Citations
The Insert Citation button is located in the Citations & Bibliography group of the Reference Tab. To insert a citation anywhere in your paper for a select source that was already added with the Manage Sources dialog, you simply click the Insert Citation button and then select the appropriate citation.
Disclaimer: No citation machine is perfect, and the Microsoft Word Citation & Bibliography engine is no different. Check with your instructor to make sure that using the Microsoft Word Citation & Bibliography engine will work for a particular assignment.