NLM citations are the cornerstone of academic writing for nursing and healthcare disciplines. This citation validates the research work and gives credit to the researcher who created the information. Undoubtedly, managing these citations is time-consuming and vulnerable to errors.
NLM citation generators can simplify this process, automatically generating accurate references and citations and saving time. However, students may find it challenging to select the right citation tool, as there are numerous tools available on the market. According to a report by Market Research Intellect, the market size of citation tools reached $2.1 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $4.7 billion by 2031.
If you are also worried about finding the right citation tool for your paper related to health science, then this article is for you. Here, we’ll share some of the best NLM citation generators that can save you time and ensure consistency in your citations.
Before hopping on to these tools, let’s first explore the NLM citation.
What is NLM Citation?
NLM stands for National Library of Medicine, an organisation part of the US National Institute of Health (NIH). Like the MLA or APA formatting style, this style is not very popular and is only used by nursing, medicine, and healthcare students. The manual published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors contains the general citation rules for NLM.
Below are some of the general citation rules of the NLM format:
- In this formatting style, you must mention all the authors’ names as “Last Name of the Author, Initial of First Name, and then Middle Initial”. Although a middle name is not essential, only add it if the information is available.
- Separate each author’s name with a comma.
- You have to add the full name of the title. However, when you write it, it only capitalises the first letter of it and the proper nouns.
- If you are using a journal of the National Library of Medicine, it must be cited as ‘by the NLM catalogue of Journals’.
- First, write the publication year followed by the month and the date.
- Add the volume and issue number to the next and end them with a colon. There should be no semicolon before this information.
- You also have to add the page number in your citation. For instance, if you have gathered information from a range of pages like 249 through 256, then mention it in the citation as 249-256.
You can follow these basic rules to add the citation manually. If you face any difficulty following these rules, you can get assistance from a London-based dissertation writing service that is proficient in crafting and adding citations to your dissertation.
In addition, you can use various NLM citation generators, which can handle these citations automatically and save you a lot of time.
5 Best NLM Citation Generators to Save Your Time and Effort
A citation generator is one of the most powerful tools to make the research process a piece of cake for you. In these tools, you just have to add the right information about your source, and they create an accurate citation for your research paper. However, selecting the best citation software is a tough grind as numerous tools exist.
Therefore, we have a list of the top 5 NLM citation generators that can make citation management seamless for you.
1. Opendemia
Opendemia is one of the most popular NLM citation generators, allowing you to create an NLM in-text citation and a reference page. It stores your sources and easily extracts data from these notes whenever needed. The best part about this citation tool is that it acts as a virtual library for users for all the sources used for the research work.
Additionally, this tool offers many free features to its users. These include:
- You can cite and upload images in this tool.
- Locate the exact place of the information within the source.
- Organise all the sources and citations effectively.
- Mark the sources as ‘used’ so that when you have to use them again, they automatically appear on the work cited page.
- You can attach the PDFs for each source, which you can access on any device when needed.
- Easily create citations in different styles, including APA, ACS, MLA, Chicago, or NLM.
2. Zotero
Zotero is another free NLM citation generator that is most commonly used to cite the references for the research work. You can also use this software as a browser extension and an add-on for Word. Apart from being the reference generator, Zotero can also highlight the web research that you can use.
Below are some benefits of using this tool for the citation generator:
- This tool offers almost 100,000 citation styles, including APA, MLA, Chicago, ACS, Harvard, NLM, and more.
- You can even write your paper with the help of Zotero.
- This can create citations for your research directly in MS Word or Google Docs.
- You can tag your sources with the relevant keywords, conduct research, and organise your notes of sources effectively.
- The best thing is that you can create a bibliography with multiple other people.
3. Citation Machine
Like other NLM citation generators, Citation Machine is a free tool which is easy to use. You must enter all details about your source material, such as URL, search term, title, etc., and this tool creates an accurate citation for your paper in seconds. The successfully created citations are automatically added to the online bibliography of this tool, which you can export to a Word file or Google Doc.
Some of the key features of this citation generator are the following:
- With just one click, you can change the references or citations from one formatting style to another.
- This tool supports more than 60 source types at a time.
- This can also sort the references alphabetically or by the most recent.
- Offers more than 7,000 citation styles, of which APA, MLA, Chicago, ACS, and NLM are the most common.
4. BibMe
BibMe is a versatile citation and reference page generator that is the first choice of most students. This software allows users to generate multiple citations. In addition, BibMe offers insight into grammatical correctness by offering free suggestions for grammatical errors.
Check out some of the more amazing features of this tool.
- This creates citations in various styles such as MLA, APA, Chicago, NLM, etc.
- You can get 20 free suggestions to improve your grammar.
- You can even search for your sources by entering the author’s name, title, or ISBN.
- With this, you can easily cite and work-cite pages in your paper.
5. Cite This For Me
If you are looking for an accurate NLM citation generator with an easy-to-use layout, Cite This For Me must be your first pick. This software offers citations in different forms, including MLA, APA, Harvard, Chicago, ACS, and NLM. The best part is the auto-cite feature, which helps you cite your sources easily.
Have a look at some key features that make this citation tool distinguishable from others.
- Find your sources with the automatic citation feature.
- Can organise all your citations in Google Drive, which you can access from any device.
- This tool creates the in-text citation and the footnotes.
- Its paid version can help you identify grammatical, punctuation, and structural flaws. So, you don’t need any grammar correction tool when using this tool.
Are NLM and PubMed the Same?
No, these two organisations are not the same. NLM, also known as the National Library of Medicine, is an independent medical institution in the US. On the other hand, PubMed is founded and maintained by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).
Conclusion
Citing your sources is one of the most important tasks when conducting research in nursing and healthcare. Manual NLM citation is time-consuming and sometimes drains students’ energy. To tackle this situation, they can contact top-rated dissertation writing firms, which can assist them in the writing process and guide them in citation formatting.
Additionally, they can use NLM citation generators that can make citation management easy for them. However, the citation tool market is rich with options and choosing the best software is difficult. Therefore, in this article, we have shared the best citation generator to help you cite your sources. These tools are easy to use, free, and can save you time significantly. Just explore the key features of these tools and find out what best suits you.
Author Bio
Amelie Bennett is a seasoned dissertation writer who has earned his doctorate from a renowned educational institution. Amelie knows how to master the art of organisation and streamline the research. Therefore, he strives to help students who are struggling to cite their sources during the research using his expertise.
