Mendeley – Which referencing style should I use?
Whether you are using the Author-Date style of referencing or the numeric style, you will find a variety of different styles within Mendeley and may be confused as to which to install in order to format your references. If you are writing papers for a particular journal you should use the style for that journal. If you wish to follow the Cranfield recommendations we would recommend the styles below.
Cranfield University Author-Date Style
This style has been developed to reflect the advice we provide in the current version of the Author-Date Referencing Guide. The latest guide and style incorporate a change which is worth highlighting:
- The DOI (Digital Object Identifier) which is the unique reference number for each article is displayed at the end of each reference if available.
- In the in-text citation up to three authors will now appear. If there are four or more authors the in text citation will show as the first author et al, e.g. (Pittaway et al., 2004)
The reference will display all the authors:
Pittaway, L., Robertson, M., Munir, K., Denyer, D. and Neely, A. (2004) ‘Networking and innovation: a systematic review of the evidence’, International Journal of Management Reviews, 5–6(3–4), pp. 137–168. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-8545.2004.00101.x.
To Install the “Cranfield University Author-Date style” follow the steps below:
- To install this citation style in your Mendeley Desktop, click on View on the toolbar, then select Citation Style > More Styles.
- Click on the Get More Styles tab, and copy and paste the following URL into the Download Style box (make sure there are no spaces before or after the URL as this can stop the style installing correctly):
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/searlesr/custyles/master/cranfield-university-author-date.csl
- Then click on Download.
- Click on the ‘Installed’ tab (it may go to this tab automatically).
- Click on ‘Cranfield University Author-Date, then select Use this Style.
- Click on Done.
The style is then ready for you to use!
Cranfield University Numeric Style – Cranfield University Aerospace Style
To install the Cranfield Numeric style which is called Cranfield University Aerospace Style simply follow the steps above but copy and paste this URL:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/searlesr/custyles/master/cranfield-aerospace.csl
If you have any feedback, comments or questions about Mendeley, please contact MIRC or KNL.
Is there likely to be an update to the Cranfield Numeric preset aswell? It doesn’t correctly cite online newspaper articles (doesn’t include date accessed or web address)
Thank you for your question, Jake and I’m sorry to hear that the citation style isn’t working correctly. We are looking into what the situation is with regard to updating the Numeric Style and will come back to you as soon as we have an answer.
Hi Mary,
Any idea why the DOI will not display in a word document?
Hello, kindly clarify what you mean by ‘Mendeley deskstop’. Do you mean personal desktop or laptop? If not, then how do we install it on our personal laptop or desktop.
Regards
Perrin
Hi Perrin,
Mendeley Desktop is the name of the product which Mendeley produce. It can be downloaded from mendeley.com. There are both Mac and Windows versions.
Kind regards
Mary