In response to the post on how to write a literature review, my friend, Ritchie Varela, sent me this heads-up on a great citation-gathering tool. Here’s Ritchie’s post:
Zotero – Citation-gathering tool
Contributed by:
Ritchie Varela
Literature review is a tasking job for a researcher. As said earlier, it requires a lot of time searching and poring over reference materials. That’s why tools are needed to make one’s job easier. I’m using a Firefox extension Zotero (http://www.zotero.org). It is a citation-gathering tool that has a lot of features:
- Automatic capture of citation information from web pages
- Storage of PDFs, files, images, links, and whole web pages
- Flexible notetaking with autosave
- Fast, as-you-type search through your materials
- Playlist-like library organization, including saved searches (smart collections) and tags
- Platform for new forms of digital research that can be extended with other web tools and services
- Runs right in your web browser Formatted citation export
- Free and open source
Perhaps you might want to give it a try. Click here.
devcompage.wordpress.com 
I am working with a PhD student and am checking to see if anyone can help me explain to her how (and when) the original authors should be cited even though she is citing the author of the literature review and the analysis that the author of the literature has published.
Kathleen, when advising thesis students, we always require them to cite the original authors as much as possible. The student citing the original author must locate and read the original material and not another person’s literature review. For instance, the original author might be:
Wilbur Schramm, 1964. Mass Media and National Development, Stanford University Press. Palo Alto, California.
As this is a seminal book, the student might want to cite Schramm’s key ideas but may not have access to the book– it is not available in their university library, no teacher has a copy, it is out of print, etc. In this situation, I advise the student to find another author who has similar views or has written about communication and development, e.g., Emile McAnany (Communications in the Rural Third World), Everett M. Rogers (Modernization Among Peasants).
I hope this answers your question.
everything seem fine but may be make it clearer to beginners how it meant to bring on board all idea
nice review
Relative to Kathleen’s query about the difficulty of finding the manuscript written by the original author and monina’s advise to fnd another author who has similar view: What if, despite diligent search, you cannot find another book or manuscript sharing the same view with the original author cited in the said book?
Godwin, if you are absolutely sure that there is no related material, then that’s the time you can resort to making what I consider as third party citation, e.g., “Viloria (2007) as cited by Cruz (2009) asserted that ….” But such a citation will make your review of literature weak.