Customer Reviews

Niles Endnote 8.0 for Students Only (Mac)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Thomson ResearchSoft's (www.endnote.com) Endnote 8 for the Apple Macintosh Computer is without question an excellent piece of software for academic searching and downloading bibliographies from the Library of Congress and many online college card catalogs. Bibliographies can be downloaded via the internet and formatted automatically to a large number of selected academic bibliographic styles.

It is possible to export references directly from ISI Web of Science, Highwire Press, Ovid, OCLC, ProQuest, and more. Endnote bibliographic information can also be entered by typing directly into template record by simply filling out the proper fields that are displayed for a given type of reference. There are 37 reference types with up to 52 fields for entering pertinent reference and image information. Images of charts, figures, and equations can be cataloged and entered into the bibliographic data base for later retrieval when this information is added as a citation to an academic paper.

When you have physically retrieved the books and periodicals from a library there is also a field for entering notes and abstract information for each bibliographic entry. When you have finished entering information into the bibliographic data base you can simply print the information and cut with scissors each individual bibliographic entry and arrange according to the outline of your academic paper.

Physically writing the paper thus becomes more organized and citations are easily inserted directly from Endnote into your word processor. Microsoft Word for Mac (2004) is the best word processor to use with Endnote 8 since it allows direct insertion of citations into the paper while you type. Although other word processors can be used if the writing is converted to RTF (Rich Text Format) prior to citation insertion.

The 586 page Endnote manual that comes with the installation CD is well written and allows the novice to begin learning how to use Endnote 8 with a number of good examples. Endnote 8 worked extremely well with my Macintosh iMac G5 (Mac OS 10.3.7) computer and appears to have been completely rewritten so that it is intuitive and easy to use with Mac OS 10.3. If academic research writing is sine qua non for you, then Endnote 8 for the Mac will save you time and headaches. It is also highly recommended for all Senior high school students that will attend college.

Potential buyers should first read reviews at VersionTracker.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/15738&vid=174501&mode=feedback

I fully agree with these reviews, Endnote 8.0 should not be purchased

First off, I want to suggest that any student or researcher get some type of software to organize their resources and write their bibliographies for them. Buy something, and buy it now-it will save you time and effort. This software does that, and it does it well. The cite-while-you-write feature allows you to almost forget about the time-consuming citations, and focus on your work. Endnote also allows you to connect to many databases to automatically enter your citations if they are available (most of mine have been, either at Pubmed or in various school library catalogs). If they are not available, you will have to enter the citation into endnote, but only once.

The 3 stars rating is based upon a comparison of this software to other software I have used, NOT to no software (if write papers with references often, you should have something). In fact, I mostly have used Endnote 7 student for PC, which I would have given 5 stars.

I had to rate this lower because of a bug I have encountered. Microsoft Word freezes up if I open a file with citations in it, unless endnote is also opened. I am not sure whether this is just because of my computer's specific setup, or if it is a common problem. I have lost work several times due to this bug by absentmindedly opening a file without opening endnote as well.

In summary, this is a great program with great features. If you encounter a bug, the convenience is lessened. Good luck.

I am using a G4 Mac running 10.3.9. There seems to be a bug between Endnote 8 and the Palm desktop software v4. If I run the latter, the Endnote will crash when attempting to connect to the internet for searching literatures. When it does connect, it downloads references from the internet much more slowly than v6. If Endnote 6 is working well for you, DO NOT upgrade as you will gain very little with this one and there is a potential risk of bugs.

Excellent product for the student who is writing thesis or course papers that does not want to be concerned with formating citations, location of saved articles, figures or other.

I originally purchased a copy for Windows and have recently moved to an Apple Mac environment. The transition of the database was easy and the product works well with Mac version of MS Office Word.

I would recommend this product to students who need to organize their article and be able to make properly formated citations on the fly.