An introduction to Mendeley

This page has two sets of resources to help you familiarise yourself with the free reference manager, Mendeley.

Option 1 is for people who are pressed for time and are comfortable with taking a ‘self-study approach‘. Here you will find a series of videos in a playlist that will guide you in making use of Mendeley. Overall, it should take you less than 30 minutes to work through these videos. However, if you are going to apply the steps as you go, it will obviously take a little bit longer.

Option 2 is a ‘take me by the hand approach’. If you have time you can work through this 2-hour workshop where I show you how to use Mendeley in a step-by-step fashion.

Whichever route you choose to take, you will need to download the software and create an account BEFORE working through any of the videos. This step should not take longer than 10 minutes:

1. Create a Mendeley account

The first thing you would need to do is create a Mendeley account. This process is really simple and free. Go to https://mendeley.com > click create account > complete your details on the registration page > register. Remember the details you entered; you will need them in the next step.

2. Download the desktop app

Next you need to download the desktop app. Go to https://www.mendeley.com/download-desktop-new/ > click the download button. Open the app on your computer and sign in using the details from step 1.

3. Install the Word Plugin

The Word plugin will allow your Word processor to communicate with the desktop app. To install, click on tools > Install MS Word Plugin. Mendeley will ask to close Word to install the plugin. Make sure you have saved any Word files you may have opened. In your Word processor, click on the References tab; you should see some icons with the Mendeley logo on them. I will walk you through all of these in both approaches below.