Zotero

Librarian: Shaun Bennett

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What is Zotero?

Zotero is a citation manager that stores and organizes your sources. It also offers plug-ins that automatically generate citations and bibliographies as you write and allow you to save sources to your library as you search. Zotero includes 300 MB of free storage, or anywhere between 200 and 1200 PDFs.

Getting Started

To register for a free account, go to the Zotero homepage and click “Log In,” where you will be prompted to set up your account. Zotero is not connected to your NC State ID, and we recommend using a personal email address to sign up, so even after graduation you'll retain full access. 

Next, download the Zotero desktop application. Make sure that all Microsoft products are closed before you download Zotero, so that the plug in for Word can be installed. 

Zotero is cloud-based, and you can switch between using the desktop application and the web version. Once the desktop app is downloaded, you should sync your account. In the desktop app, go to Settings, then click “Sync” and sign in. Click “Set Up Syncing,” and then click the green circular arrow at the top right of the desktop homepage. Now Zotero will automatically save your sources to its server.

Using the Zotero Desktop Application

The homepage of the desktop application is called “My Library” and displays every source you have saved. You can create collections and subcollections to organize your sources. To add a new collection, click “File,” then “New Collection.” To create a subcollection, right click on a collection. You can rename and delete collections by right clicking on them. You can also create group libraries in Zotero, which are shared collections that you and other Zotero users can access and save sources to.

Whenever you save a source to your Zotero library, Zotero automatically collects information about the source, such as the authors, title, abstract, and publication information. All of these fields can be edited if you need to correct an error or add missing information. 

You can read and annotate PDFs in Zotero by clicking the arrow next to a source and double clicking the PDF icon.

Using the Browser Connector 

Zotero offers a browser connector you can use to save sources to your Zotero library as you search. You can download a connector for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari. Zotero can save journal articles, books and ebooks, newspaper articles, images, webpages, and other types of sources, but it is best at automatically capturing information about journal articles and books. For the connector to work, you need to have the Zotero desktop application running.

When you find a source you want to save, click the browser connector icon in the toolbar of your browser. You can select which folder in your Zotero library you want to save the article to. Zotero will often save the PDF automatically, and the browser connector will indicate if it has been saved.

If the PDF is not saved, you can add it to your library manually by downloading the PDF to your computer and then dragging and dropping it into the Zotero desktop app.

If you want to save multiple articles at once, stay on the search results page and look for the browser icon to appear as a folder. Click on the icon, then select which articles from the search you want to save.

Using the Word/Google Doc Plug-in

When you download the Zotero desktop application, it also downloads a plug-in for Word that you can use to generate citations and bibliographies. A similar plug-in is available for Google docs, which you can add by downloading the browser connector. For the plug in to work, you need to have the Zotero desktop application open. Click “Zotero” at the top of the Word document to display the features you can use. 

To add a new in-text citation, click “Add/Edit Citation.” The first time you do this, Zotero will prompt you to select a citation style. Then a search bar will appear, where you can search your Zotero library for the source you want to cite. You can search by title or author. Once you select the source, hit Enter, and Zotero will generate the in-text citation in your document. 

To create a bibliography, click “Add/Edit Bibliography,” and Zotero will generate a bibliography of every source you have cited. If you add or remove citations, Zotero will update the bibliography to reflect these changes. 

To change the citation style of your in-text citations and bibliography, click “Document Preferences.” This will bring up the menu of citation styles to choose from (Zotero supports over 10,000 styles).

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