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Zotero

A guide to setting up and using Zotero for research

Creating Collections and Organizing Resources

Zotero has two main methods of organizing your library: Collections and Tags

You can also use notes to add summaries or flag other important information in a source.

Collections

Zotero enables you to separate your sources into different collections (folders). You may create as many collections and sub-collections as you wish.

To add a collection, click the folder icon in the upper-left corner of your Zotero library.

Zotero Collection Icon

This will create an empty folder. You can then drag and drop items from your "My Library" folder to your new folder, or you can save references directly to your folder by selecting it when you save items into Zotero from the browser.

Saving to a collection pop-up from the Zotero connector browser extension

Tags

Along with basic info like title and author, Zotero will often save additional information, like the subject terms used in a database. 

Database item result with subject terms highlighted  Zotero menu showing subject terms from the database item being added as tags to the item in Zotero

 

You can also add your own tags, and can even color code them for quick, visual organization.

Notes

Notes enable you to give yourself little reminders why a source is useful or important for your research. For example, if you find a journal article that makes a point that you want to refer to in your paper, you can write yourself a quick reminder in the notes section.

Search Your Zotero Library

Zotero allows you to search your library by keyword. You can search:

  • Citation info (author, title, etc),
  • Your notes and tags
  • Full-text of pdf's in your library*

*NOTE: PDFs that are only images (unable to highlight/copy text) aren't searchable by default, but you can download a plug-in to enable optical character recognition.