In general, the recommendation I make to my students is that building up your bibliographic references and notes on academic papers or books that will define your studies is critical to your development, and more than justifies a small financial investment. I know as a student one may feel buying a tool is hard to justify when free “good-enough” options exist, but curating knowledge is hard, and adding more bumps on the road has a price…
Word, a tool that depends on a format monopoly, does not help in any way to curate knowledge or develop long-form work, and imposes significant distractions. It was designed for “shallow” office work. Mendeley is a free corporate tool which (apart from the benefits of integration in the Elsevier walled garden) is devolving its citation system to this minimum denominator, Word. This is a fragile and impoverished environment in which to build an academic project…