Zotero Reference Management: Adding References

Basic Steps

1. Make sure you have Zotero Desktop App downloaded and the Zotero Connector plugin installed for the browser you're using.
2. Open Zotero Desktop App so Zotero Connector can communicate with it
3.  On the webpage you want to save, click the Zotero Connecter button on your browser
4. On the small dropdown that appears, select the folder you want the page to be saved to, if any (this is optional).
5. Congratulations, the source should now be in Zotero! Zotero will download a PDF, if available, or a snapshot of the webpage.
6. Check in Zotero to make sure that all metadata has imported correctly and completely

The gifs in the right column will walk you through the process

In some cases, you may want to input the information manually. To do this:

1. Click the green plus sign
2. Select the kind of source that you're entering (for example, book, journal article, webpage, etc)
3. Fill out all relevant information (at a minimum, author, title, and year of publication--other information will depend on the kind of source)

Basic Steps

1. Download the PDF you want to import into Zotero.
2. Open Zotero Desktop App
3. You can import in one of two ways:
   1. Click the green plus sign in the toolbar & select "Link To File." Select the PDF file
   2. Click and drag the PDF file into Zotero.
4. Doublecheck that the information imported correctly. In the example below, all the important information was imported correctly, but Zotero had issues with some of the formatting in the title. 

Scholarly databases allow you to export a file with all the citation information, in a format that Zotero can read. 

1. In the database, use the cite or export tool, and select the RIS option. The file will be downloaded to your computer

2. In Zotero, click the green plus sign and link to file. Select the .ris file that you downloaded. Double-click the .ris file within Zotero when it appears, and click ok in the pop-up. It will import the citation information. (You can now delete the .ris file)

Zotero works very efficiently with scholarly/academic websites, like the library databases. In the gif above, we can see that Zotero identifies that there is a PDF of the article, and imports that along with the article's metadata.

Below, we can see the entry for this article in Zotero. It has imported all the metadata accurately. Everything you need to create a citation is here, along with other useful information, like the abstract. 

Just like when saving from a scholarly source, click the Zotero Connector on the webpage you want to save. In addition to saving the webpage information to your Zotero Desktop App, it will also take a snapshot of the webpage--this can be helpful if it's a page that changes over time.

However, some websites are more difficult for Zotero to import from than others

For example, Zotero imported this article from the New York Times without any issues. 

But Zotero has had an issue with this resource, which contains a 16th century recipe book. The source does have other important metadata--author, translator, website title, date. Because of the way the metadata is stored on this website, Zotero couldn't import all the information. It is up to you, the researcher, to doublecheck in Zotero that the entry is complete and correct. It's very easy to add information to a Zotero entry manually, and since Zotero does, at a minimum, save the URL, it is easy to return to the webpage again.