1. A computer program product for automatically generating a reference note in an electronic document when directly quoting information from another electronic document, the computer program product comprising: one or more computer-readable tangible storage devices; program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to receive a first user-selected insertion point or replacement area from a first user interface to a destination electronic document; program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to, subsequent to receiving the first insertion point, provide a source user interface to a user-selected source electronic document; program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to, subsequent to providing the source user interface, receive a user selection of text content to be transferred from the source user interface to the first insertion point or replacement area; program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to, subsequent to receiving the user selection of content, automatically copy the selected content to a transfer buffer without requiring the user to return to the first user interface; program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to automatically capture and record one or more source reference data items corresponding to the selected content simultaneously with or subsequent to automatically copying the selected content to a transfer buffer; and program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, to automatically generate in the destination electronic document at least one reference note selected from the group consisting of a footnote, an endnote, a table of references entry, and a bibliographical entry containing the recorded source reference data items.