Reference Management: A Guide for Freelance Writers

Good reference management can make all the difference when it comes to writing up your research. In this post, we’ll look at why and how you should keep track of your references and why this is important for freelance writers as well as academics.

Why Is Research Important?

To be a successful freelance writer, your work needs to be a trusted source of information. The more thorough your research, the more accurate and balanced your content is likely to be. And the more accurate and balanced your content is, the more compelling and credible it will be to your readers. Credibility builds trust, which is more likely to attract repeat work. Perhaps the question should be, “Why wouldn’t research be important?”

And what better way to demonstrate the research you’ve done than by citing your sources? Referencing, after all, isn’t just for academics; as a freelance writer, you will also need to keep track of the sources you use in your work.

Why Should You Keep Track of Your References?

Again, perhaps the question should be, “Why wouldn’t you?” Ultimately, if you’ve done all that work, the last thing you want is to have to search all over again for where a crucial piece of information came from, particularly when you are on a tight deadline. And providing details obtained elsewhere without giving credit to that source could well amount to plagiarism; keeping track of your references as you go will help you avoid falling into that trap.

How to Keep Track of References

Knowing that you need to keep track of references is one thing, but how do you go about it? Here are five top tips for good management – not only for your references but also for your research and notes:

1. Plan Your Research

Particularly when time is limited, you will want to focus your research. Going down a rabbit hole might seem fascinating at the time, but picking your way through a mass of unnecessary information, whether you’re up against a deadline or not, will soon take the fun out of doing so. Approaching research with a clear idea of the main issues you need to address will help keep you on track.

Once you know what information you need, you can narrow your search terms and seek out credible sources. If you can find the primary source of information, that will boost the credibility of your writing, making it time well spent.

2. Keep Track of Everything You Read

It doesn’t matter how you do it – whether you use MS Word, Google Docs, a spreadsheet, a note-taking app, or good old-fashioned paper and pen – but it’s vital that you keep track not only of the information you have read but also where you read it. If you don’t, you could end up wasting time looking for the article that gave the nugget of information that will prove your point.

Remember that if the piece you’re writing requires a bibliography as opposed to a reference list, then it should include every source you read, not just those you’ve cited in the text. Keeping track of everything you read as you go along means that you’ll only need to go through the process once, saving you time that you can devote to writing.

3. Perfect Your Note-Taking Technique

Having established the importance of note-taking and planning your research, you can save time sifting through your notes when it comes to writing your piece and citing your sources. Try out these different methods to see which works best for you:

• The Cornell note-taking method can be useful, particularly if you prefer to handwrite your notes.
• You can color-code your notes, using different colors for direct quotes, paraphrasing, and facts needing evidence.
• Separating your notes under the relevant headings in your plan may help speed up the process of writing up your research.

Knowing what information you need to include in the bibliography and how to present it according to your referencing style will help you avoid having to wade through a heap of unnecessary details – or, possibly worse, having to go back and find the source to locate any missing information.

Just because the bibliography or reference list comes at the end of your piece doesn’t mean it should be the last thing you write – compile it as you go, and that will be a large part of the job out of the way, allowing you to concentrate on your writing.

4. Use Reference Management Software

If you don’t have many sources to deal with, compiling your own list of references as you go may be the best – and quickest – way to keep on top of them. But for a larger project, reference management software can do a lot of the heavy lifting.

You can use reference management software to collect and organize your references and then produce citations and bibliographies in your chosen style. There are free options available, including Mendeley and Zotero, and some that have free trial periods, such as EndNote and Paperpile. To use the software, you can either manually add references to it as you go or import the reference information directly from the database or website with one click using a browser extension.

5. Try a Plagiarism Checker

Having spent so much time on research and writing, the last thing you’ll want is to have all that hard work ruined by inadvertent plagiarism. Keeping track of everything you read and keeping notes of the information required to properly cite your sources will go a long way toward avoiding plagiarism. You can make use of online plagiarism checkers, which scan your writing and compare it with existing online content. This is a good way to catch anything you may have missed, particularly if you’ve rushed to meet a deadline. Again, there are some free options available, such as the one produced by Scribbr, as well as paid options, such as Turnitin.

Becoming A Freelance Writer

We hope this post has convinced you that good reference management is a vital skill not only for academics but also for freelance writers, enabling you to produce credible work to boost your professional reputation while still meeting those all-important deadlines. To further improve your freelance writing career, how about taking our Becoming a Freelance Writer course? You can try it out for free here.