Writing an essay is hard enough without worrying about references, citations, and formatting. Essay handles all the parts that slow you down so you can focus on the actual writing. See how Essay helps you produce high quality academic writing, fully formatted and ready to submit.

Collect and manage all of your academic sources in one place using Essay's Reference Library. The Reference Library can be accessed from Essay Home.

Create a reference by clicking the green "+" button on the right, or using the "create new essay" drop down menu on the left and selecting "Reference."

You can add a reference in four different ways.

Click the "Add reference manually" button and add the information for your journal article, book, or website.

Search for a reference using a keyword or identifier. For example, if you're writing a paper on Lord of the Rings, type "The Fellowship of the Ring."

Click the arrow icon (">") to view specific editions:

Select one to add it to your library, or click the "edit" icon to add or edit specific details for the reference.

You can search using the following identifiers:

You can add a reference by importing a .bib file, which is a text file that stores reference information in BibTeX format. You can paste your BibTeX directly, or upload a .bib file.

You can also import your references from Zotero. To connect your account, you'll need your User ID and an API Key, both of which can be found on the "Security" page of your Zotero account settings.

Once you connect your account, you'll see a list of all your references on Zotero that are ready to import to Essay.

Re-import sources you've updated in Zotero, or add in new references you've added since your last sync.

The Reference Library gives you a few ways to keep your sources organized.

You can organize references into collections. Select a reference, and click "add to collection" at the top of the table.

Then, either add the reference to an existing collection by clicking the "+" icon, or click "New collection" to create a new one.

You can also add a reference to a collection by clicking the three dot menu at the end of the row, and selecting "add to collection."

Clicking a reference opens it in the side panel, where you can view its details and take a few actions.

At the top of the Reference Library table you'll find several filters.

You can filter to sort references by:

You can also search for a reference using the search icon at the top right.

You can manage your references while you're working on an essay from the References toolbar, which can be found on the right side of the editor.

Within the References toolbar you have three main views:

From the "Library" tab you can add a reference to your essay.

You can also create a reference from the Reference toolbar by clicking the "+" icon at the top right. This is the same as creating a reference from the Reference Library.

Set or change your citation style from the top of the "This essay" tab within the Reference toolbar.

Essay currently supports 5 main citation styles:

You can select one of these styles to set it as your default for all new documents you create. (You can change this from your account settings.)

Essay automatically generates your bibliography from the references in your essay, formatted to your chosen citation style.

Click the "Preview reference list" at the bottom of the Reference toolbar to see a preview of your bibliography. Toggle between styles to see how it looks.

To add an in-text citation, place your cursor in the editor where you want the citation to go and click the "add citation" icon in the floating toolbar. In-text citations are automatically formatted to your chosen citation style.

Choose a reference you want to cite:

Enter the specific details for that citation:

In-text citations appear in purple. Clicking one opens the citation card, where you can:

To change the citation style for your essay, click "Change" in the References toolbar. All existing citations will reformat automatically.

Select your new style. Essay supports:

You can also set your default citation style by clicking the checkbox near the bottom.

Note: Changing the citation style for your essay will also change the document's formatting (font, spacing, margins, etc.) to match the style. You can customize this from the "style" toolbar.

Warning: Chicago NB style displays citations as footnotes. If you have existing in-text citations and you switch to Chicago NB, your in-text citations will be turned into footnotes. When you switch to Chicago NB, Essay saves a "version" of your document in the previous style so you can go back and restore it.

Footnotes and endnotes let you add explanations or additional context to your essay. Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page; endnotes appear at the end of the document or chapter.

Place your cursor in the editor where you want the note to appear and click the "add footnote or endnote" icon in the floating toolbar.

Write your footnote.

You can switch between footnote and endnote using the menu at the top.

Add a citation to the footnote using the "add citation" button at the bottom.

Note: Footnotes will appear at the bottom of the document while in the Essay editor. However, when you export your document, footnotes will automatically appear at the bottom of the page they were added to.

Endnotes are not currently supported when exporting to Google Docs or Microsoft Word, and will appear as regular footnotes.