Zotero Install and Practice: Practicing with Zotero

In this part of the assignment, you will:

1. View an article via several different databases and websites and save them in your Zotero library.
2. Use Zotero to create in-text citations and bibliography entries.
3. Understand and explain why your citations and bibliography entries might look slightly different.
4. Develop a plan for correcting your citations and bibliography before turning in your project.

For this part of the assignment, we'll use the article "Negative Effects of Latent Toxoplasmosis on Mental Health" by Jaroslav Flegr and Jiří Horáček.  This article, like many, is available in multiple places:  through the library databases, Google Scholar, the Directory of Open Access Journals, PubMed, and the web.  It's perfectly fine to search for and access research articles using any (or all) of these tools.  However, each site may have the article's information formatted slightly differently, which will affect the way Zotero cites it.

Using different tools, search for the article online.  You should be able to find it in the following places:

OneSearch

The publisher's website

Google Scholar

PubMed

Directory of Open Access Journals (make sure you set it to search for Articles, not Journals)

Search for the article in each of these places and use the  button to save the article to your Zotero library.

Go to your library in your Zotero standalone application.  You should have the same article saved several times:

Click on each entry to view the preview in the right-hand pane.  Does the information look the same for each one?  Which ones have the most complete information?  Which ones are missing information?

Download the attached worksheet and open it in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.  Fill in your major and the citation style that's used in your major.  Some commonly used styles are CSE for biology majors, ACS for chemistry majors, and APA for nursing majors, but you may be using a different style.

Using the Add/Edit Citation option, insert five in-text citations, using a different version of the article each time.  Use the first result in the list for the first one, the second result in the list for the second one, etc.  (Don't worry, under normal circumstances you wouldn't have to cite an article this way -- this is purely for demonstration's sake.) 

If you are unable to install Zotero on your computer, you can go to your library, highlight the five saved version of the article, and right-click or Ctrl+click to choose "Create Bibliography from Items."  Choose the correct citation style and choose "Citations" under Output Mode:

When you have all five in-text citations, use the Add/Edit Bibliography feature to add your bibliography/list of references.

If you are unable to install Zotero on your computer, you can go to your library, highlight the five saved version of the article, and right-click or Ctrl+click to choose "Create Bibliography from Items."  Choose the correct citation style and choose "Bibliography" under Output Mode:

There should be five entries in your list of references.  Are they all formatted the same?  If not, can you tell why?  Fill in the answers to these questions on the worksheet.

To deal with the issue of Zotero citing sources a little bit differently depending on the information it has, you have a few options:

1. As mentioned before, you wouldn't normally save five different versions of the same article in Zotero.  You could look at your Word document, figure out which article gave the best citation, and delete the others.
2. You can go into your Zotero application and edit the info for the source.  You can change spelling and capitalization, edit the names or number of authors, whatever you need to do to make your citations and reference list entries look correct.  This is a good option if you're not quite done with your paper and may be adding more citations in Word.
3. You can also make changes directly on the Word document.  This is a good option if you're basically done with your paper, you're ready to turn it in, and you never plan to look at your saved sources in Zotero again.

The last question on the worksheet asks what you'd do to fix your citations.  Fill in your answer, save the worksheet, and turn it in to your instructor via Blackboard.

Zotero is a great resource and can be very helpful, but this exercise demonstrates some of the limitations of its programming.  Always remember, you're smarter than the application and it's up to you to use your (presumably) human eyes and brain to check its work before turning in your project.