Dear First Year Grad Students,
This is some of the absolute BEST advice I can give you:
Pick a citation manager that is free or very cheap now. Start logging and organizing all the papers your read into it. Like really, NOW. You will thank me for this advice later.
<3
Lisa

When I say free or cheap, I don't mean based on your university subscription access, I mean to the public. Why? Because you leave grad school you won't be forced to pay a ton of money to continue using something very critical to your work. It's EXTREMELY hard to switch.

I use Zotero. It's probably not the best one and I encourage y'all to chime in with good free or cheap citation managers in the replies!
What I value about it is that it is free and it has a Microsoft Word plugin that is very user friendly.

And in case you are saying "shit, what is a citation manager?"
They are your best friend. But really, basically it's a program that keeps all the citation information for your references. It lets you sort and organize them by topics so it's easier to find papers down the road...

they will also format your references for you in your papers. So when I'm writing a paper, I use the plug in to search for the reference and it inserts it in whatever citation style I pick. It also updates the ordering as you go.

One consideration to think about is your adviser's preferences. Ask them if they have a preference. MOST of them won't care but some have a Strong Preference, and it's usually a battle that's worth it unless you have a good reason. They're mostly all fine.

Also, know if your adviser has Strong Opinions about formatting for writing in general. If your adviser is LaTeX ride or die, you definitely want to pick a manager that is compatible with LaTeX.

And seriously, just start using it for everything. Even references you use for class. You will be like "I need a reference for X, and I read one in SPCPHYS 8914 2 years ago. WHERE IS IT" and be so thankful that you have a folder for SPCPHYS 8914.