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Zotero - Collect, Organize, Cite and Share your Research Sources: Introduction

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources.

Latest issues (technical usually)

Zotero Connector (latest update 9 Mar 2023)

There has been an issue with the Zotero Connector for MacOS in the last 2 days. Please update your Zotero Connector to these versions:
5.0.104 for Firefox
5.0.104 for Chrome, and
5.0.105 for Edge

Users on MacOS

  1. Monterey OS (the latest is 12.6.3) should be compatible with Zotero. If you encounter issues, please see this post 
  2. If your Mac is installed with Apple M1 chip, you need to install the latest version of Zotero (5.0.95.2) to work with MS Word (version 16.44 or later). The M1 chip bug was resolved around 15 Feb 2021, see https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/mac_word_apple_silicon_compatibility
  3. If you don't see Zotero in your MS Word ribbon, see here for possible solutions.

Zotero Guide Book

More Information

Other Reference Managers

EndNote X9 is a software that:

  • stores and organizes references found from many sources
  • inserts these references into a Word document 
  • automatically formats your references according to a predefined citation style, and more! 

If you're new to EndNote, check out the Installation Instructions and Step by Step Guide.

Mendeley is a citation management tool that, like many others, lets you collect & organize citations, & then easily insert them into documents & format bibliographies.  But it also lets you drag & drop PDFs into your library & extracts the metadata to create a library!

You can highlight and annotate your PDFs and share them with others.  Colleagues can then also annotate the same document, with each author displaying as a different color.

Use more than one computer?  It's not a problem!  Download Mendeley Desktop to as many computers as you want, then sync them with a click of your mouse.  Need to use your library away from your computer?  Mendeley Web gives you access to your citations no matter where you are.

Mendeley is social:  create a profile, follow other researchers, create a network of people doing similar research.  Discover the articles and journals that are being read in your field right now.

Create collections of papers.  Make them public & share them with an RSS feed (great for class reading lists!).

Click to learn more about Mendeley!

Zotero Training Sessions

 

Zotero Training Workshop Details:

Date Time Venue Registration
Sep 2023 10- 11:30am Webinar via Zoom Check RU page in Aug2033
01 Mar 2023 10-11:30am Webinar via Zoom Session is live
01 Feb 2023 10-11:30am Webinar via Zoom Session is over

Before you arrive at our class, it's important to:

  • Register a Zotero account using your email
  • Download and Install Zotero Standalone on your laptop
  • If you are working on campus, ensure that your laptop is connected to NUS Wi-Fi and that you have Microsoft Word 365 installed. Microsoft Word 2019 is good with Zotero too.
 
 

What is Zotero?

                                                                                                             

Zotero is a free bibliographic citation management software that allows you to save, collect, manage, cite, and share research sources. Zotero is available either as a Firefox extension or as standalone software that works with Firefox, Chrome and Safari browsers. It works right in your browser, making it easy to save you citations while you search.

Use the Zotero word processor plugins to easily cite your sources and create a bibliography while you work.


Note: While Zotero is a free software, the Zotero cloud storage has a limit of 300 MB. Anything more than 300 MB, you would have to pay for extra cloud storage. However it is possible to expand your storage space for free by following the instructions here.

What can Zotero do?

Pros and Cons of Zotero

Some points to consider before you start using Zotero:

Pros:

  • Great for importing records for non-traditional references, like wikis and websites.

  • Helps to organize web screenshots and PDFs. You can make PDFs searchable by choosing to index them in the preferences menu. 

  • Easily imports records from many of the resources you already use.

  • The program lives where you already do most of your research, in the browser.

  • Imports records from several major databases that won't work with EndNote & Mendeley, including Factiva, USPTO, Espacenet, & FreePatentsOnline.

  • It's user-friendly.

  • Easily retrieves PDF metadata, like title and author information.

  • Great for creating bibliographies in OpenOffice.org.

  • Synchronizes collections among multiple computers & backs up data.

  • Offers option to create user profiles and groups, so you can share your collection.

  • Detects proxy servers automatically, making off-campus access to library databases easier.

Cons:

  • Need to pay for extra storage space.