What are some useful challenges?

We want to evaluate a number of software tools in terms of how well they actually handle real-world tasks a researcher might have, whether it be undergraduate student, Ph.D. candidate, or advanced scholar.  Think about tasks that you may be doing on a fairly regular basis, and edit this page to add your challenge suggestions.

• Create a bibliography for a two page paper using different source types
• Share your citations with others
• Create a citation from a web site
• Import a citation from an online database
• Change your references from MLA to APA (or vice versa)
• Attach your notes, keywords, or tags to a citation
• Include special characters or non-Roman alphabets in your citation
• Cite a podcast
• Cite an audio recording
• Cite a music score
• Cite unpublished archival materials, including a letter, a scrapbook, an internal memo, a newspaper clipping
• Cite an archival finding-aid from a repository website
• Download a paper as a pdf using the reference's DOI
• Link each reference in your database to a pdf on your hard drive
• Merge two citation libraries from separate publications into one document with appropriate formatting (numbering updates, create a merged library, etc.)
• Edit a reference after it has been inserted into a paper
• Create a custom citation and reference format for a conference paper or journal article
• Cite while you write - in as many different word processors as possible (Word, Word Perfect, Open Office)
• Cite with the author part of regular text, e.g: "as Smith (1776) argues"
• Include page numbers and comments such as e.g., c.f. to a citation, e.g. "in the late 18th century, economists started to discover the virtues of the free market (cf. Smith 1776, 18-24)

Please edit this page to add your challenge, or send it via email to citefest@northwestern.edu

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