Garbage In, Garbage Out: Citation Generator Tools

Abstract

Students may not always know how to do thorough research but they sure do find out quickly that EasyBib, BibMe and other free citation tools can supposedly make their lives easier. The citation tools in subscription databases elicit oohs and aahs during instruction sessions, but are they any better than the free tools? This poster will show how the tools stack up against each other in real-life examples and provide guidance you can pass along to students who accept machine-generated citations as gospel.