Zotero (pronounced "zoh-TAIR-oh") is an application that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It's easy to use, connects with your web browser to download sources, and best of all it's free.

Zotero will allow you to:

• Collect books, articles, videos, etc, and have them all in one location
• Easily create citations from databases and PittCat
• Tag your citations for greater searchability
• Attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations
• Enter citations and bibliographies, in many formats (MLA, Chicago, APA, etc.)
• Create in-text citations
• Share your research and references with a group

For more information about Zotero, please visit the Zotero @ Pitt guide.

Create collections to organize your references. Collections are like file folders on your computer, but a reference can be in more than one collection at a time. To create a collection:

• Select "New Collection.." to create a new collection
• Subcollections can be created by right clicking a collection name
• Click and drag references to add them to collections and subcollections

To create a quick bibliography:

1. Select the references or collections you want to include. Hold the control key and click to select multiple items.
2. Right-click one of the selected items and choose Create Bibliography.
3. Choose the bibliographic style you want, select Copy to Clipboard, click OK and paste into your word processor.

​Zotero offers word processing plugins for Word and OpenOffice. The plugin adds a Zotero toolbar to your word processor that allows you to add citations to your document while you write.

Portions of this page were created by Jason Puckett and licensed by Georgia State University Library under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

You may reproduce any part of it for noncommercial purposes as long as credit is included.  I encourage you to license your derivative works under Creative Commons as well to encourage sharing and reuse of educational materials.