This is intended to offer the absolute simplest information needed to do referencing at university (and even high school) efficiently and always correctly formatted and updated.

Short Reference Tasks

If you only need to reference two or three papers you can use ZoteroBib (if you’re writing a larger paper click here). Just enter your DOI or ISBN or do a manual entry and it’ll format everything for you, select your format and then just click on the three dot and Copy Citation for your citations or the big button Copy to Clipboard for the entire bibliography.

Reference Manager

While there are many reference managers out there I will cover using Zotero (as it is free and works on all operating systems).

You can download it here. While it downloads I’d strongly suggest you create a free user account (click here) as this will allow you to sync and access your references library from anywhere. By creating an account you also gain the benefit of using your iPad (if you have one) to read an annotate your sources and still view them on the computer when writing your report.

When instructed following the installation prompts. You are then ready to start adding your references to your library. Before you begin adding any references create a new collection. You can do this my click on the folder with a plus icon. Then name it for ease of access later. I typically create a collection for the semester and then subcollections (right click on the collection) for each assignment.

This can be done via Identifier (the magic wand) or manually. To use Identifier you will need to DOI or the ISBN13. Simply click on the magic wand icon and enter your identifier then hit Enter on your keyboard. I’ll use the book Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun with an ISBN13 of 978-1449301958.

If the identifier is not found in the catalog you’ll need to enter the details in manually. To do this click on New Item (the plus symbol) then select the item type, if you don’t see your item type click on more an then select it. Now just enter the item details required for your reference format (e.g. APA, MLA, Chicago). For the below example I’ll use the book Teaching Languages to Students with Specific Learning Differences by Judit Kormos and Anne M. Smith.

Citations

To use your reference library (the references stored in Zotero) you’ll need to make sure Zotero is open and make your way to your document (as most students use Microsoft Word I’ll use that for the demo too, though you can also use Google Docs or LibreOffice). In the video below you’ll see me delete my manually entered citation for Grosjean and replace it with a Zotero citation.

First you need to tell Zotero what format to use. To do this go to the Zotero menu in Word and click Add/Edit Citation then select the citation style you want (if you can’t find the style you need you can likely use Google to find and download the style), I’ll be using APA 7. If you’re writing in another language than English change language. Language changing alters how the citation appears (e.g. instead of p. or pp. for page/es in English when Swedish is selected Zotero uses s.). Then to add your citation just use the search field to enter the author name (or title etc.) and hit enter on your keyboard.

If you want an in-text citation then it’s much the same but after you enter the search term (e.g. author name) and select the reference click on the citation then tick the box Omit author then click elsewhere in the search bar before you hit enter on your keyboard. Why not just type the year? Because if you haven’t cited the reference elsewhere it won’t appear in your bibliography.

If you want to have two citations in the same parentheses then it’s just as simple after you search for the first citation just enter the next (and next…) and hit enter on your keyboard. Just make sure you check that you select the right paper if you have the same author (unlike I did in the recording below!).

If you instead want to add a prefix of some sort such as cf. or see (as an aside read through this document so you use them correctly)

Now to insert the citation with cf. follow the same insert process as when omitting the author name except now enter the prefix.

Notice that the above recording also shows the importance of ensuring that you check that the system enters the author names the same. While Cook is the same author (for both 1997 and 2001) Zotero when citing treats them different due to the inclusion of the middle initial J in the 1997 reference entry in the reference library. If you notice this after you’ve entered the citation just edit you reference in Zotero and go back to Word and then Zotero menu and hit Refresh twice.

Bibliography

When your citations have been added it’s time to add the bibliography or list of references. To do this simply click on the first line after your reference title and then go to the Zotero menu in Word and click Insert Bibliography

If the formatting of the insert bibliography doesn’t match the rest of your document you’ll need to modify the references style in Word. You can do this clicking your cursor on the bibliography text then by going Home > Styles Pane then selecting the current style (which should likely say Bibliography) and then Modify Style to your liking.

If you need you can disable/enable a hanging indent by from the Modify Style window clicking on the bottom left Format > Paragraph then under Indentation next to Special: select (None) or Hanging

Tip

You may find it easier to change from Zotero’s simple view to the classic view when dealing with more complex citations or when writing multiple papers as you can choose to only view references from one collection. To do this in Zotero (not Word!) select Zotero > Settings > Cite > Word Processors > Use classic Add Citation dialog