Mastering Citation Management: A Guide for Chinese Scholars

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1. Choosing the Right Tool

Google Scholar supports saving to only four citation management tools:

EndNote

RefMan

BibTeX

RefWorks

If you don't frequently use LaTeX, EndNote is the top choice due to its superior commercial support and largest user base. This recommendation is based on Wikipedia's comparison of citation management tools and discussions in Chinese academic forums.

2. Choosing a Reference Standard

According to Wikipedia: Rules for Bibliographic References:

The "Rules for Bibliographic References" is a national standard of the People's Republic of China for citing references in academic articles, issued by the Standardization Administration of China. The code is GB 7714-87, with the 2005 version being a recommended standard, coded GB/T 7714-2005[1]. It has been widely adopted by various colleges, academic journals, and academic conferences in mainland China.[2]

3. Implementation

How can we conveniently apply the national standard "Rules for Bibliographic References" using tools? Let's evaluate the following options:

3.1 Word's Native Citation Feature

According to Wikipedia: Rules for Bibliographic References:

Microsoft Word 2007 contains a GB7714 style in the "References" tab, which uses the "author-year" system, but the generated bibliography does not comply with either the GB 7714-87 standard or the GB/T 7714-2005 standard.

3.2 EndNote's Built-in Style

According to Wikipedia: Rules for Bibliographic References:

EndNote includes two GB7714 styles (named Chinese Standard GB7714) for both "numeric" and "author-year" systems, but they follow the GB 7714-87 version standard, which does not include citation formats for electronic literature.

To verify, I downloaded these two Style files from the EndNote official website and examined the comments for the two Styles corresponding to the national standard in the newer EndNote X7 version. I can confirm that as of early 2015, the two Styles that come with EndNote still adhere to the 1987 standard.

3.3 Customizing EndNote Style File

Yes, unless EndNote addresses this issue in future versions, you'll need to manually modify the old standard Style to meet the new standard.

For detailed steps, refer to Creating GB/T7714 "Rules for Bibliographic References" output format in EndNote.

If you're not keen on DIY, you can use ready-made solutions: EndNote output style template based on national standards, complete with illustrations, suitable for most users.

Whichever reference you choose from above, note that:

The output format created this way still has a limitation: it only conforms to references in English. If your work only involves English references, you don't need to process after generating the output format. If your work involves both Chinese and English references and you need to mix them, refer to my other blog post 'Science Network—Handling "等" and "et al" in Chinese and English mixed references generated by EndNote' for processing.

4. Conclusion

For most Chinese scholars, if LaTeX is not a consideration, the following reference management methodology is recommended:

Citation management tool: Use EndNote, which is convenient for saving from Google Scholar

Citation format standard: Use the national standard GB/T 7714-2005

Chinese language support: Modify or download a custom EndNote Style file

Note: The aforementioned Chinese and English mixed sorting issue may require manual adjustment