Retail price: Basic edition, free; school edition starts at $150 annually; EasyBib’s Free MyBib Pro service provides MLA formatting
By MaryAnn Karre
EasyBib.com is a Web site that helps students quickly and simply collect, format, and alphabetize lists of works cited and teaches them to credit the sources of their information correctly.
Quality and Effectiveness: EasyBib is the right name for this product, as it makes complete and accurate bibliographies a snap. With Autocite, it’s as simple as entering an ISBN, URL, keyword, or part of a title to generate a complete citation for books, databases, and as many as 58 types of sources including cartoons, music, and public performances. It took only seconds to create a list that consisted of a book, an article from a technical journal, a YouTube video, and a software program. For sources that are not provided by EasyBib automatically, manual citations are just as easy, since every field on EasyBib’s citation forms includes detailed help.
The Citation Guide will help show students where they can find the various pieces of information they need for their bibliography, not simply what they need. Though the free basic edition is a wonderfully time-saving and supportive tool, the school and MyBib Pro editions allow students to easily switch between APA, MLA , and Chicago or Turabian styles; they also include parenthetical and footnote formatting, database importing, IP authentication, and a Web-site quality check, and they are free of ads. All versions can cite 58 types of sources through the use of Autocite, all export to Word and RTF , and all have citation management.
Ease of Use: Students need only log in to access their lists. Because the Web site is so intuitive and quick, they can focus on using reliable sources and documenting them properly instead of worrying about formatting the citations correctly. The parenthetical citation wizard creates a citation instantly when the page number that is cited is entered, and the footnotes wizard formats a footnote or endnote on the fly. When they use the student and Pro editions, students can even import citations from commonly used databases, such as JSTOR, EBSCO, and ProQuest.
Creative Use of Technology: EasyBib is more than a citation tool, especially since it has partnered with Credo Reference, WorldCat, and YoLink to help students start research immediately upon accessing the EasyBib site.
Top Features
¦ EasyBib.com is just as valuable a tool for the beginning researcher as for the university student.
¦ By collecting information on sources as the student researches, EasyBib lets the student concentrate on addressing the topic instead of on the details and format of the citations.
¦ Providing step-by-step help, EasyBib teaches students to properly credit their sources in the style that they will use from elementary school through college.
Overall Rating
EasyBib.com is equally at home at all academic levels, from elementary school to university, since it can format citations in MLA, APA, or Chicago or Turabian styles and assist with parenthetical citations and footnotes, which can be copied and pasted easily.
