Introduction — Including Important Instructions!

(Originally created in the Guide on the Side Interface in July 2014. Moved to PressBooks in March 2020. Updated annually. )

Zotero is a bibliographic management program that makes creating in-text citations and bibliographies easier.     Several bibliographic management programs are available at UNMC.  We’re using Zotero because of it’s unlimited availability (it’s freely available to everyone) and the fact that the versions for Windows and Mac are nearly identical.

General Objectives:

Those completing this tutorial will use Zotero effectively.  Specifically, they will:

• Import PubMed records to create Zotero records for journal articles.
• Manually create a Zotero records for a package insert and a monograph from an online drug information resource.
• Use the Zotero “Duplicate Items” feature to detect and merge duplicate records
• Organize Zotero records in folders.
• Use Zotero records to insert in-text citations in a Word document.
• Use Zotero to create an AMA 11th formatted bibliography based on the Zotero-inserted in-text citations.

Introduction to Drug Information  (PHPR 562) students will, thus,

• have Zotero records for the three source types needed for their final monograph assignment,
• have practiced using Zotero to produce in-text citations and bibliographies in the AMA 11th style required for the final monograph assignment.

Instructions:

1. You must use a laptop or desktop computer (not a tablet computer) to complete this tutorial series.  This tutorial series is focused on Zotero’s desktop/laptop program.
2. You will need to use the Chrome or Firefox or Safari browser to use Zotero to greatest effect and complete the tutorial series.

• • If you don’t have one of these browsers installed on your computer, begin by installing Firefox or Chrome.  The Firefox internet browser is available free from Mozilla and  the Chrome internet browser is available free from Google.
  • After you open either Firefox or Chrome,  enter –

href=”https://pressbooks.nebraska.edu/introtodi/chapter/learn-to-use-zotero-to-format-in-text-cittions-and-bibliographies/

— in the Chrome or Firefox address box to return to the tutorial.

3. Please, read all the instructions in the next section before following the directions.  (When you complete the first step in this section, the instructions will be obscured.)

   Start by arranging the instruction window next to a new working window as follows:

   • • click this link to open the Zotero download page in a new window or tab.
     • If the page opens in a new tab rather than a new window, pull the new tab away from this window so you have the two windows open on your screen simultaneously.

   

   • • resize the new “working” window and this instruction window so that they can sit side by side on your computer screen.

   

   • • Whenever you open a tab that covers the instruction panel, pull the new tab onto your working window. 

    

   Important information about the tutorial layout:

   • Page separations are indicated by a line.  Just scroll past the line to see the contents of the next page.
   • Chapter links appear at the bottom of the window (see black arrow to the link in the red footer in screenshot above).
   • Complete the steps on one page and then immediately go to the next page, or, if you are at the end of a ‘chapter’, click the link to the next chapter.
   • Don’t work ahead of the instructions.  It is easy to get lost or miss important instructions if you work ahead.
   • A contents menu is available above the text (See red arrow in screenshot above).  You can use this menu to jump between distant chapters.  The various “Contents” views toggle. Click to open the “Contents” panel or show the chapters in a section, re-click to close the contents panel or hide the individual chapters in a section

Using a UNMC cluster computer?  If so, you may have to repeat the install and preferences steps in the future weeks.