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Biological Sciences: 03-201: Undergraduate Colloquium for Sophomores: Citation Management with Zotero

A guide on how to use biological sciences databases for research

Why use Zotero?

In the process of doing research, you will encounter a multitude of resources including books, articles, and websites.  Keeping all of these organized as you progress, and ultimately creating a bibliography using a particular citation style can be a daunting and time-consuming task. 

But no fear, citation management help is here!  With the relatively easy-to-use citation management tool, Zotero, you will be able to:

  • organize and save resources on the cloud, allowing you to access them from any device
  • share resources such as PDFs with other students for group projects
  • generate bibliographies in nearly any citation style with a click of a button!

 

Zotero can be a useful tool for projects in any of your classes and in your future careers! 

It only takes about 10 minutes to get started with Zotero, an open source platform for citation management. The short videos below will walk you through all of the key features of the platform. 

To learn more about how to use Zotero, check our library workshops page for upcoming workshops or contact Melanie Gainey (mgainey@andrew.cmu.edu) for a consultation.

 

Give Proper Credit!

Citing the works of authors that you use to form your own research is a critical part of the writing and research process. Citation provides evidence to back up our own ideas and statement. It demonstrates where our work fits into the greater body of knowledge.  And it gives proper credit where credit is due. 

Read these safe practices to avoid accidental plagiarism and check out these paraphrasing techniques.

CMU's University Policy on Academic Integrity

Get writing help from the Global Communications CenterThe GCC supports any studentat any stage of the writing process.  The GCC offers free one-on-one tutoring for academic communication projects on the first floor of the Hunt Library.

 

Video 1: Getting Started with Zotero

In this video, you will learn how to 

  • download Zotoro
  • configure your settings

 

Please note that you can turn on subtitles by clicking on the CC button in YouTube.

Video 2: Organizing your Zotero Library

In this video, you will learn how to:

  • organize your library by creating Collections and Sub-Collections

 

Please note that you can turn on subtitles by clicking on the CC button in YouTube.

Video 3: Adding Citations to your Zotero Library

In this video, you will learn how to:

  • add journal articles and webpages to your library as you browse the internet
  • adding metadata information to the items in your library
  • creating notes 

 

Please note that you can turn on subtitles by clicking on the CC button in YouTube.

Video 4: Creating Groups in Zotero

In this video, you will learn how to:

  • create groups for sharing citations when working on group projects and papers

 

Please note that you can turn on subtitles by clicking on the CC button in YouTube.

Video 5: Creating a Bibliography with a Single Click!

In this video, you will learn how to:

  • create a bibliography automatically in Microsoft Word or Google Docs
  • change the style of your bibliography

 

Please note that you can turn on subtitles by clicking on the CC button in YouTube.