Using Zotero at Stanford: A QuickStart Guide

Zotero is "a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work - in the web browser itself." If you're looking for an alternative to RefWorks or EndNote, you may want to give Zotero a try. (Zotero has their own Quick Start Guide on their site as well.)

Installing Zotero

1. Go to zotero.org and click the big red Download button at the top-right.
   
2. You'll get a warning that reads, "Firefox prevented this site (www.zotero.org) from asking you to install software on your computer." Click the Edit Options... button.
   
3. Click the Allow button to allow www.zotero.org to install Firefox add-ons, then close the Allowed sites window. (Don't worry - Zotero won't eat your computer.)
   
4. Click the big red Download button again to install Zotero. Click Install Now
   
5. Click Restart Firefox to finish installing Zotero.
   
6. Woo hoo - Zotero's installed! Let's use it!

Using Zotero with Socrates

1. Go to http://socrates.stanford.edu and perform a search. For this example, we'll be using a title search to find the Handbook of Online Learning.
   
2. Click the title of your result.
   
3. A small blue book icon will appear in your address bar. Click it!
   
4. Zotero saves the item to your library.
   
5. If you have a list of items in Socrates, and you want to save multiple items to your Zotero library, click the folder icon in the address bar. You can check the boxes in front of each item you'd like to save.
   

Using Zotero with Databases

Zotero also can save references from databases such as Academic Search Premier

1. Enter your search terms
   
2. Select an article
   
3. Click the icon in the address bar to save the citation to your library.
   
4. Zotero saves the citation to your library.
   

Working with Your Zotero Library

1. Click the Zotero logo at the bottom right of your browser window to open your library.
2. You have several options to add information to each item record:
   
   • Info: The bibliographic information, used in citations and bibliographies.
   • Notes: Jot down any supplemental thoughts here.
   • Attachments: You can use this to attach a file, such as the PDF version of an article.
   • Tags: Use tags to categorize your references.
   • Related: Use this tab to define relationships between resources.

Creating a Bibliography

1. Right-click the resource you would like to cite (hold down ctrl (Windows) or cmd (Mac) to select multiple items).
   
2. Choose your preferred citation style and choose Copy to Clipboard from the dialog box
   
3. In your word processing program, Paste the citation(s) into your paper.
   
4. Presto! A properly-formatted reference list appears!
   

More Zotero Resources

• Zotero.org Quick Start Guide
• Zotero.org Documentation page.
• University of Michigan tutorial. (PDF)