Using a Searching/Database/Style-Manual-Formatting Program:
Endnote

One of the most exciting new product lines to develop over the last decade are those software applications that can manage all of your bibliographic citation needs.

When researchers and students set about the process of writing a paper, they typically do that by going to their word processor software (most likely, Microsoft's Word) and start composing their thoughts.  During that process, of course, they have the need to put in references or notes to other existing work that they are either quoting or paraphrasing. 

Sometimes, the particular style manual format they have been told to follow (APA, for example, or the MLA style manual, or Turabian or . . . .) specifies that references are to be in parentheses in the text itself; sometimes, end notes are specified.  Sometimes a separate bibliography is preferred, in alphabetical order by the names of the authors or maybe in order of reference in the text.  The variety of formats specified is mind-boggling: indeed, the software we are going to bring to your attention knows over 700 bibliographic styles--from journals as well as the publishers of style manuals (APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, etc.).

The software is called Endnote, and it costs students approximately $90, plus shipping.  What it allows you to do is three things:

1.  You may search different online database services and online catalogs through the Endnote software.

2.  You may select particular citations you find in those databases and have them stored in a personal Endnote database (Endnote calls it a "library").  Or you may simply add new records to one of your Endnote databases manually.

3.  You may tell Endnote how to format the citations and use them in a paper you are writing, or how to output them into a bibliography you are preparing.

As Endnote itself puts it, with their product you may search bibliographic databases available to you through the Internet, you may organize references (and now images) in a database you build, and you may construct the paper you are writing with built-in manuscript templates.  In fact, you simply what the bibliography (and now, figure list too) appear as you write.

To see how Endnote works, visit their web site at http://www.endnote.com

Remember, though: Endnote is not a transparent or particularly easy product to set up, because it needs to know which databases you are going to be using, and it needs to have technical information about what libraries you are going to be going through in order to make connections to those databases.  However, OU Libraries knows about Endnote and is beginning the process of expediting the use of Endnote for its audience of users.   See this page, for example: the Libraries' Z39.50 Services page:

                    http://libraries.ou.edu/eresources/LORA/z3950/

What will Endnote cost you?  Well, the OU bookstore sells the most recent student version (version 6) to its customers for $109.95.  But, if you check the Internet, you will find it available to you for prices like $86.05 at PriceGrabber.com or $94.95 from Tech Depot (by Office Depot).  Of course, you have to pay shipping too!  But, check around your favorite Internet software discount houses: you may be able to a save a buck or two.

In summary, if you want to have a software package that will format your citations (references and end notes, and now images) for you . . . and have it also allow you to search proprietary bibliographic databases and online catalogs, putting the citations you are interested in into a personal database for you, there is software that will now do that.