A Step-by-Step Guide to Organizing and Citing Your Research

When it comes to research, few aspects are as demanding and time-consuming as the process of citing scholarly sources: After all, not only must a researcher worry about properly formatting their references, but they must also figure out a way to organize and keep track of their sources. Luckily, this painstaking task can be simplified by using Zotero, the free and open-source citation manager.

Compatible with various operating systems, Zotero allows you to download references into a personalized library and then create properly formatted in-text citations and bibliographies in Microsoft Word with just a few clicks of the mouse. Zotero also enables you to import full text PDFs into your library and to attach research notes to pertinent citations, creating a centralized hub for your research materials.

This guide will provide an overview of the essential features of Zotero, explaining in step-by-step detail how to download the program, create reference libraries, insert in-text citations into Word, and back-up your library into the cloud.