Zotero
What is it?
This tool is probably the most useful tool I have encountered for assisting my graduate studies and research. Zotero is a free, open source citation management system. It works as an extension for Firefox and allows you to create electronic citations for articles, books, news, video, images, dissertations, etc directly from your library catalog, worldcat, amazon.com, google books/scholar, and many academic databases like JSTOR. You can attach PDFs, images, webpage snapshots and notes to each bibliographic record. And, if you forget where something is, Zotero is fully searchable. A plug-in for Microsoft Word or OpenOffice allows you to create in-text citations, footnotes, and bibliographies formatted in dozens of citation styles including APA, Chicago, and MLA.
Why should I use it?
I recommend Zotero to ALL graduate students because it is:
- FREE! - Many citation management systems exist out there but many of them cost $$$. Grad students are usually cashed strapped. Spend that money on books and use a free citation manager!
- Saves Time - formatting your bibliography, footnotes, and/or in-text citations can be one of the most time-consuming parts of paper writing. Using citation software to do the formatting you allows you to re-budget that time and spend it making your papers better!
- Facilitates Study - Studying for Master’s, or PhD qualifying exams is a completely overwhelming task. Much of the process is about organizing information and that can be really time-consuming but Zotero can streamline this process giving you more time for actual studying.
How do I install it?
First, you need to make sure you have Firefox installed on your computer. Then, install Zotero by clicking here.
Depending on your security settings you may need to authorize Firefox to install the extension … Don’t worry it’s from a very trustworthy source!
Click “Install Now” and restart your browser when prompted.
Navigate to the word processor plug-ins page here.
Find the extension for your word processor (Word or OpenOffice) and operating system (Windows, Mac, and Linux are supported) and follow the installation instructions.
After a restart of Firefox and your word processor you are ready to go!
If you can tolerate possible “bugs” there is also a beta version of Zotero Stand-alone that doesn’t require Firefox and will work with Google Chrome.
How do I use it?
The following video gives you a brief overview of how to use Zotero. This Quick Start Guide gives more details.
There are also quite a number of YouTube videos about Zotero. Check them out!
If you already have a database in EndNote or RefWorks, or some other citation management system and would like to switch to Zotero there are instructions here detailing how you can do that.
Tips and Tricks
Zotero is so easy and infinitely useful, I’m sure you’ll find new ways to apply it to your own academic life. But to get you started, here are some of the ways I use it.
Share between multiple computers by enabling web-sharing.
Use zotero to manage pdfs. I “store” all my pdfs in zotero so I can always find (and share) them when I need them.
Use the notes feature as you read. Attach quotes from your readings as you go, so you have them ready to go when it comes time to write. No more time wasted hunting for that quote you just know you saw somewhere!
Get ready for finals or qualifying exams by organizing your bibliographic records ahead of time. I imported the citations for all my readings from my courses and exam reading lists at the beginning of the term and attached my notes, response papers, favorite quotes as I went along. Then when it came time to study all that information was at my fingertips!
Use tags to help categorize information to make searching more efficient.
If you use OpenOffice, save your papers in .odt format until you are finished then save a copy in .doc if you need to share it with Word users. Saving as a .doc will break the link to zotero making the automatic updating bibliography useless. That said when you do save as .doc you can still see all your citations and bibliographies, they just lose their connection to the zotero database.
Happy Organizing!
