TLDR: This is a short tutorial to show you how to automatically turn a combination of characters – for example, .cite – into formatted text within your MS Word or other MS Office file so that you can use that as a placeholder for an idea or a citation. Essentially, it’s something that you need to return to later in your writing and editing process.

My situation

As I am writing (my literature review, as it happens), I have a clear idea of what I want to say. I also have a long list of interesting articles, documents, chapters and so on that I want to cite in my writing. However, whenever I stop to insert a citation, particularly when I am not citing a specific idea or sentence from one source, I can’t help myself from “quickly doing a bit more research”. This approach has pros and cons.

The pros

It’s wonderful! I stop writing, fall down the rabbit hole that is the internet or the library, and an hour later, I emerge with lots of new information and possibly a fantastic new selection of people to cite.