BibMe, the fully automatic and free bibliography maker

May 15, 2007

It’s no secret I am interested in managing my citations online. You can read about my previous adventures here and here. I ultimately settled on NoodleTools, which I have now used through hundreds of APA 5th edition citations and my profs made only minor corrections which could have been corrected by my input being better on the front end.

So I took notice when lifehacker mentioned BibMe. I sat up when I saw the interface, very clean and a nice use of graphics. NoodleTools’ interface is just slightly clunky and not terribly web 2.0ey. No sweat, Noodle, you make up for it in functionality.

I played with BibMe and did not like what I found. First, when I entered the name of an article I particularly like, it immediately returned this result…

“ZOMFGWTFBBQ!!!”

I may just be getting more conservative in my old age (just turned 30, remember) or it could be that nagging love for Christ, but this offended me a bit. Was there any need for OMFG or WTF? I imagine they are trying to be funny, and given the silly image of the guy that shows up on the same page it is clear, but the implication of bad language is not needed. I make it a point not to see things at school that I would not want someone to see me looking at, and this falls into that category.

Strike 1.

Strike 2 came at the lackluster results. I end up usually having to use my University’s proxy login to access my journals, because so many require it. So I thought I would try the manual fill-in section. Major problem…

When you enter the authors’ names, it lists them backwards. I made up a completely bogus entry and listed the authors in order that they would be listed on the article. BibMe put them backwards, with the second author ending up first.

Oops.

So fake entry looks like this…

Connely, Joker, and James Flitch. “Ugly in a world where you can choose to be beautiful.” Educational Technology and Research, 54.2(2004): 335-390.

Other than that, I think there are some formatting issues, but I will leave those alone since I have already ruled this out as an effective tool. Research is too important to get messed up by a bad tool.

Sorry, BibMe, I wanted to dig you, but you gotta fix these issues before we can talk any more.

Posted in Grad School