Zotero is a citation management tool that helps you keep track of your sources, organize projects, and even automatically create in-text and bibliography citations. Visit the Zotero Help Guide.
Librarians are now booking appointments to help you with all things Zotero. Fill out the appointment request form and someone will follow up with you to schedule a virtual appointment via Zoom.
See the workshops page for descriptions and room locations.
This tab has information on downloading Zotero and saving citations. Start here if you have never used Zotero before.
The instructions in this guide apply to version 5 of Zotero and Word 2016.
Start at https://www.zotero.org/download/.
Items to install:
Create a free account with your Reed email address at https://www.zotero.org/user/register to take advantage of features like syncing your library to zotero.org and working in groups.
With a Reed email address, you have unlimited file storage for free.
With the appropriate browser plugin, you can add content to your Zotero library by clicking on the icon that appears in the address bar of your web browser. See below for a few common icon examples:
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Before using the bookmarklet with JSTOR, you need to accept JSTOR's Terms and Conditions. Click on the 'Download PDF' button and accept the terms before using the bookmarklet. Otherwise, bibliographic metadata will be added to Zotero, but the PDF will not be included.
APA style requires the use of sentence case for titles while Chicago requires title case. Zotero can automatically convert to title case, but not the other way around. Therefore, if you use APA or multiple styles, it is best to save your titles in sentence case.
The magic wand tool allows you to add content by unique identifiers.
Click on the wand to open the dialog box.
Enter a unique identifier such as:
There are two ways to add multiple items at once.
It is not possible, though, to add a mixed lists of identifiers, i.e. you cannot add a list containing some ISBNs and some DOIs.
If you use the browser plugin or Identifier to import references into your Zotero library, you might have trouble adding certain information to the reference. Try changing the Item Type (often from Web Page or Book) to a more specific entry.
For example, when you add an edited volume by ISBN, it adds the whole book rather than any of its constituent parts. In the record you can change its "Item Type" to "Book Section" and it will shift the metadata around. You will then need to manually add the author/title/pages of the individual essay.
If you are working in a database and the bookmarklet does not appear in your browser bar, you can usually download the search results as an RIS file. Then import the file into Zotero by clicking File and choosing "Import".
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Drag a PDF into the main content area to add it to Zotero. Add embedded metadata to Zotero by right-clicking on the file and selecting "Retrieve Metadata of PDFs." If there is no embedded metadata in the PDF, you can manually enter information about the file. |
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You can also manually add records to Zotero. Click on the green circle with the white “+” symbol and select format. If you don’t see the format you want, select “More” to see additional formats. |
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Syncing is not a substitute for backing up! What if you accidentally delete a bunch of references? You'll lose them for good the next time your library syncs. Here's how to make a backup of your Zotero library:
This work by the Reed College Library is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY Attribution 4.0 International License.
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