MID Thesis Guide

This page describes the various ways to add items (e.g., books, journal articles, web pages, etc.) as items in Zotero.

In addition to item metadata, notes, and tags, Zotero can also be used for managing files. This page describes the different ways you can add files to your Zotero library, and how added files are stored and synced.

Feeds are a great way to discover new research. With feeds, you can subscribe to updates from a journal, website, publisher, institution, research group, or other source and quickly find new articles or works. You can subscribe to feeds and quickly add items to your Zotero library.

Zotero should retrieve high-quality metadata (title, author, date, etc.) for most academic PDFs. While it can sometimes extract basic information (title, author) from other documents, you shouldn't expect that — anything can be distributed as a PDF, but that doesn’t mean there’s any standard metadata available for it.

In addition to items and file attachments, you can also store notes in your Zotero library: child notes, which belong to a specific item, and standalone notes.

Zotero groups provide a powerful way to share collections with a class, work closely with colleagues on a project, keep track of conversations in your field more broadly, and keep tabs on what people at your institution or in your department are working on.

Syncing is no substitute for backing up your data!

Concise, step-by-step guides with visuals to common tasks in Zotero including building your library, creating in-text citations in MS Word or Google Docs, creating bibliographies, adding new items to your library, annotating PDFs and taking notes, synching your library, creating groups, and more.