Citation Management Tools

1.  The tags tab on the right-hand pane displays tags that were imported with your source (e.g., from the subject headings in a database). You can also add tags that can help you search and organize the items in your collections.  Simply click "add" to attach new tags, such as "important."

2. To tag multiple items at the same time, simply drag and drop them onto a pre-existing tag in the lower left-hand pane.

Notes about Tags

An important note about Tags: 

Tags are portable, but collections are not! 

This means that if you copy items between Zotero libraries, their tags will transfer, but not their collection placements.

Relations can set up between any pair of items in a library (it is not possible to relate items from different libraries).

1. To create a relation, select an item in the center pane and go to the “Related” tab of the right pane.

2. Click the “Add” button, and select one or more items from the same library in the pop-up window (hold down Ctrl or Shift [Windows/Linux] or Cmd or Shift [Mac] to select multiple items) and click “OK”.

3. The selected items will now show up as related items in the “Related” tab, and clicking an item will take you straight to that item.

Notes about Related Function

With the Zutilo plugin, you can also select multiple items in the center pane, then right-click and choose “Related selected items” to related all selected items to each other in one click.

Note that when you relate item A to B, B will be automatically related to A.

But relations are not transitive: relating A to B, and B to C, will not automatically relate A to C.

Some suggestions of how you could use this feature:

• connect book chapters to their parent volume

• connect book reviews to the book reviewed

• connect different versions of a work (e.g., connecting a conference presentation that eventually became an article that eventually became a book)

• link associated items from different collections

• link items that form parts of a single work (e.g., articles in a series)

• connect standalone notes to the items they discuss

• link one item to another discussed in the Abstract or Notes fields

• link items that have similar comments in the Abstract or Notes fields

1. There are two ways to take notes in Zotero - directly on the PDF or in a separate note. Taking separate notes is especially useful if you are working with a source that doesn't have a PDF (e.g., print books, print reports, artwork). To take these kind of notes in Zotero, first choose the item within your library that you want to add a note to by clicking on it in the center pane.  Next, go to the right-hand pane and click the "notes" icon.

2. Next, click the + button to add a note.

3.  Type in the text editor that opens up.  Your note will be automatically saved as an attachment beneath the item (article, book, etc...) as you are typing.  Note: you can edit the note in a separate window by clicking on the 3 dots in the upper right corner.  Doing so provides you with more screen flexibility while taking notes.

4. The text editor also has rich text features. This means you can highlight notes, make lists, or use other editing tools to help make your notes as meaningful as possible for you.

5.  You can add multiple notes to an item.  Sometimes it is helpful to see all of the notes in a collection at once. To see all of your notes, place your cursor in the center pane then hold the shift and + keys at the same time.  All of your items will be displayed so you can see the attachments beneath each item.