I write monstrous documents (hundreds of pages). Zotero is all I use. It’s ridiculously simple and you CAN SHARE REFERENCE WITH OTHER PEOPLE SO THEY DONT HAVE TO ENTER THEM.

This might not seem like a big deal, but I can get junior to prep a doc and share reference, or just enter references for me before I start writing and it saves a pile of time. Further, I can call references that my colleagues have entered.

I’m so old that the last time I wrote a research paper, it was on a word processor with no Internet connection or spell check.

Given such constraints, I can’t fathom the concept of waiting until the end to add all the references. If I didn’t do it as I went, I’d have surely died.

I should add that we always read each other’s papers before submission to get a second set of eyes for errors, misspellings, and grammatical quagmires. It was mutually beneficial as the reviewing made us all better. Is that still a common practice?

It’s pretty much abandonware, but the original mendeley software is the bomb. Starting to play with afforai and it seems interesting.