Managing Sources with Zotero

Creating Citations and Bibliographies with Zotero

You can use Zotero to create citations and bibliographies in one of fifteen citation styles — including APA, MLA, and Chicago, the three most popular. The process taken to create these citations and bibliographies, however, can vary depending on what Zotero platform you are using. Below are guides for how to create citations and bibliographies in the Zotero app and through Zotero.org.

Generating Citations and Bibliographies on the Zotero App

1. Open the collection (folder) that you are using for your research project.
2. Click "Select" in the top right corner of the screen.
3. Click on each source that you are wanting to generate citations or a bibliography for. If you are wanting to use every source in the folder, you can click "Select All" in the top right.
4.  Once you have chosen all of the sources that you need, click the share button at the bottom right of the screen.
5. A new pop up menu will appear, providing you with a series of options that you can chose for your citations or bibliography.
   • First, choose whatever style format you are using (APA, Chicago, MLA, or etc.).
   • Next, choose an output mode. "Citations" will create an in-text citation for all of the sources you have chose (Please note that it creates a single citation, so unless you need a citation for multiple sources, select only one source if you are planning to choose this option). The "Bibliography" option will create the list of citations you need to include at the end of your project (think Works Cited or References).
   • Finally, choose the desired output method. "Copy to Clipboard" is recommended. Choosing this option will copy the citation or bibliography to your clipboard so that you can paste it directly into a Word document.

*Please make sure to double check the formatting and accuracy of any citations or bibliographies generated by Zotero.

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Generating Citations and Bibliographies on Zotero.org

1. Open the collection (folder) that you are using for your research project.
2. If you are using Zotero.org on a desktop computer, you can select sources by holding the Ctrl key and clicking each source individually, or by holding Shift and clicking the first and last source. Selected sources will be highlighted in blue. If you are using Zotero.org  on a mobile browser, you can select multiple sources by tapping and holding a source to trigger the select function.
3. Once you have chosen all of the Zotero entries that you want to include, you will next need to choose whether or not you need citations (meaning in-text citations) or bibliographies (meaning the a list of full citations to include at the end of your project, like a works cited or reference list).
   • To generate citations, you will need to choose the citations icon which looks like an opening quotation mark followed a stack of horizontal lines. This will appear at the top of the screen on a computer browser and at the bottom of the screen for a mobile browser (see image below).
   • To generate a bibliography, you will need to click the stack of books icon. This will appear at the top of the screen on a computer browser and at the bottom of the screen in a mobile browser (see image below).

*Remember: Double-check all citations and bibliographies automatically generated by Zotero to ensure accuracy and proper formatting.

Zotero.org on a Mobile Browser

Zotero.org on Desktop Browser

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