Mendeley guide

Organising references

Mendeley automatically organizes your references into collections as follows:

• All References - Displays all imported references in Mendeley
• Recently Added - Displays the references added to your library in the last 30 days
• Recently read - Displays the references for PDFs opened in the last 30 days
• Favorites - ‘Star’ a reference to automatically add it to your ‘Favorites’ collection.
• My Publications - This collection displays the publications that you have authored and claimed through the Scopus Author Profile
• Trash - Displays the references that you have deleted from your library

You can also create your own folders for different work projects under the Collections header. You just click on the New Collection button that appears under the heading, allowing you to enter the folder name in the blank field. There are two ways to move references from the All References folder to a new  folder. You either drag a reference to the folder you want, or select references to move and click Organize > Move to Collection from the bottom bar. In either case, the reference does not disappear from the All References folder.

Editing references

When you bring references to Mendeley, check that all the necessary reference information has passed correctly. The program may not recognize reference information specifically from references imported in PDF format. If you notice errors in references, do the following:

1. Click on the editable reference to open its data to the right side of the the page.
2. If you want to edit any point in the reference, use the mouse to select that data field and change the text.

Reading and annotating references

If you are able to open a reference article in Mendeley, or if you have saved PDFs in Mendeley, you can mark text or make notes on them while reading. The reading view has the following functions:

• Select text  - This tool is used to select text within the document for copying/pasting text or applying highlighting
• Highlight text / highlight rectangle - This tool is used to highlight text in the desired color
• Sticky note - This tool is used to create sticky notes at specific locations within the document
• Color selection - This menu is used when choosing a text highlight color
• Fit to width  or height - These buttons are used to match the document to the available width or height
• Zoom in or out - These buttons are used to zoom into and out of the document.
   

To the right of the actual article there is a panel where you can see the reference information in the article (Info), all entries made (Annotations), as well as the notebook (Notebook). For example, you can use a notebook to write longer reflections on the topic of the article. To start a new entry in the notebook, click New Page at the bottom of the panel.
 

Sharing references with others (Private Groups)

You can also share references and PDFs with others in Mendeley, which is convenient, for example, when working on the same project. More detailed instructions for sharing references can be found here.