APA style is a standard for formatting papers and citing sources that is set out by the American Psychological Association. It is frequently used in education. It covers:

• Citing sources within the text of a paper
• Formatting a paper (capitalization, headings, etc)
• Creating a reference list of cited works at the end of a paper

At their most basic, citation management tools allow you to:

• Collect lists of articles, books, webpages (and lots more) for use in research
• Format and create bibliographies using a particular citation style, to export into a research document

More advanced tools also allow you to:

• Link to the source materials
• Store the source materials
• Insert in-text citations and bibliography entries while writing in Microsoft Word 
• Collaborate with others

For more information on citation managers like Zotero, Mendeley, Endnote, and more see our Citation Management LibGuide: