Center for Intensive English Studies

Zotero is a website that will help you save and cite your sources. Click on the image above or go to https://www.zotero.org/ to get started.

You should see a page that looks like this. Click the red button that says "Download Now".

Click "Zotero 4.0 for Firefox". If you do not have Firefox installed, you can get it here. It is free to download.

This box will appear in the upper left hand corner of your Firefox browser. If you do not see it immediately, click the blue puzzle piece in your toolbar. (The toolbar is the place where it says "https://zotero.org.download/".)  Click "Allow".

This box will pop up in front of your browser. Click "Install Now".

Click "Restart Now". Firefox will restart, and bring you to:

Scroll down, and you will see this.

Fill in this form to sign up for Zotero.

You will now see this page. Click "Quick Start Guide". Here, you can watch a video and read about what Zotero is and how it works.

If you have trouble understanding the information on this page, the "Translations of this page" section might include your native language. You can read this before returning to the English version.

Click on the "Z" in the upper right hand corner of your Firefox browser to open Zotero.

The bottom half of your Firefox browser will look like this. Now, we will learn how to put things in Zotero. For this, we will use ERIC and the FSU Libraries catalog. To see how to put things into Zotero using Academic Search Complete, click on the Database Guide tab.

ERIC, the Education Resources Information Center, is a free online database. You can find it in the Open Access Databases tab, or at http://eric.ed.gov/?.

This is ERIC's homepage. Click "peer reviewed only" and "full text available on ERIC". Click in the search bar, where it says "Search education resources", and type in anything you like. Try to type in something you would like to know more about.

For example, "international students". Click any article you see on your results page. I will click the first article I see here, which begins with "Covering the Gap", and show you how to put it into Zotero.

You should see an icon in your toolbar that looks like a piece of paper with writing on it. Here, it is circled in red so you can find it more easily. When you hover over it with your mouse, it should say "Save to Zotero (ERIC)". Click on it.

The article should then appear in your library. Right click on the title, or hold the control (ctrl) key and click if you are using a Mac, and click "View PDF" at the top of the list you see above.

You can also view the things you have saved in Zotero in your web browser. Log in, and click on "My Library". You should see a page that looks like this. This is the web version of Zotero.

Click on the article title, and then scroll down until you see a link that says "Full Text PDF". Click on it to read the article, and save it on any computer.

You should download Zotero for Firefox on every computer you use to look up sources! It is much easier to save sources with this download, or browser extension, than to rely on the web version. The web version will automatically save everything you have saved in the browser extension.

When you download Zotero for Firefox on a new computer, you will not automatically see everything you have saved in the browser extension. You will see it in the web version. Once you sign in and download Zotero for Firefox on a new computer, open the browser extension of Zotero.

Hover your mouse over the green, circular arrow. It should say "Sync with Zotero Server". Click on this. Then, everything saved in the web version should also appear in your browser extension.

If you are NOT synced with the Zotero server, you will see this box.

Click "Open Sync Preferences"

You will see this box. Sign in with your username and password.

Then, click the circular green arrow in your Zotero browser extension again. Everything will sync.

You can also get to this box by clicking on the gear icon in the upper left hand corner of your Zotero browser extension and then clicking on Preferences.

Now, we are going to add a book from FSU's catalog. Of course, you cannot download and read an entire book from Zotero, like you can with PDF files. Zotero will make the book you want easier to find later on. It will also make the book easier to cite.

Go to the FSU Libraries home page, http://lib.fsu.edu/.

Click "Find Books, Journals, and More. . ."

You will see a page that looks like this. Search for anything you like.

For example, "international students". I will click on the second item here, "Managing international students" because it is a book. The first result is for a journal.

On the right hand side of the page, you will see the word "export" next to a green arrow. Click on the word "export", and you will see this box. Click on "Zotero". This catalog record is now in both the web version and in the browser extension of Zotero you have downloaded.

Why do we want to put book records into Zotero if we cannot read them using Zotero?

Because: Zotero makes your bibliography for you!

Go back to "My Library" in the web browser version of Zotero.

Select the sources you want to have in your bibliography. Then, go to the bulleted list on the upper right side of the page. It will turn red and say "Cite" when you hover your mouse over it. Click on it.

Click on the drop-down list, where it says "Select Style", and choose your style. This is usually American Psychological Association or Modern Languages Association.

Here is your "Works Cited" page. That is what a bibliography should be called in MLA (Modern Languages Association) format. In APA (American Psychological Association), it is called "References".

After you make your bibliography, you must check it to make sure it is correct! Computers are not perfect, and they can give you a bibliography that is not written correctly. To check your bibliography, please use one or both of the sites in the Check Your Citations! box on the right hand side of this page.

There are two main types of citations you must have in your research papers. In-text citations appear in your paper next to the information you read in academic articles, books, or other sources. These are a shorter version of the citations in your bibliography, references, or works cited page that appears at the end of your paper. If you do not have citations for ALL of the information you read from other sources, you are claiming this information as your own. This is called plagiarism, and it will get you in trouble in American universities! The websites linked below teach you how to write these citations.

Click the image below to use the Purdue Owl citation guide for in-text and bibliography citations.

Click the image below to see the format of and examples for bibliography citations in APA. For MLA, click the link that says "CitationFox for MLA" at the bottom of the page.

 

Click the image above to use Plag Tracker!

After you finish writing your paper, it is good to check and make sure you did not forget to cite something. The website linked above, Plag Tracker, will check your paper for you. Copy and paste your paper into the box that says “insert text here”, and then click “start checking”. It is always better to summarize an author’s ideas in your own words than use their words. This shows your instructor that you understand what you read. If you would like to quote a sentence or two, you can it in “quotation marks”, and cite it appropriately. Plag Tracker will tell you if you have written someone else’s exact words into your paper without quoting them. It makes these mistakes easy to correct.