Research, Not Re-Search: Managing Research with

Whenever I met with my dissertation and publishers support automatically numbers. With some sites, including group, which was part support group capturing information in Zotero, JSTOR, it will even download a PDF and part writing workshop, we would including the Fondren catalog, of the article and associate it with the inevitably worry over three questions: WorldCat, Google Scholar, JSTOR, bibliographic record. If you prefer to Will we ever finish our dissertations? Science Direct, the New York Times, view each item separately, you can Will we ever get jobs teaching Eng- the Los Angeles Times, Amazon and do so by selecting the link and then lish? And has anyone figured a good the photosharing site Flickr. Rather clicking the page icon that appears in way to organize research materials than having to laboriously type or the address bar. Although not every — the dozens of articles and images copy and paste bibliographic informa- web site supports Zotero, you can still that we’ve collected, the masses of tion, users can grab the information download any web page, automati- notes we’ve taken? At the time, my with one click which saves time and cally capture whatever bibliographic organizational system was haphazard reduces the risk of typos. Here’s how information is available in the title at best, with thoughts scrawled in it works. Let’s say you search JSTOR field for the page, and manually add random notebooks and photocopies for articles about the history of the the rest. Occasionally web pages will stuffed into file folders. Now, how- telegraph. When the results page be taken down or moved to a differ- ever, I am much more efficient in appears, a folder icon appears in the ent location, but Zotero enables you managing research materials, thanks address bar next to the URL. You to keep your own copy of the page in large part to a handy Web-based can click on the folder and select on your computer. Likewise, you browser tool. Developed by George which of the articles on the page to can create a record in Zotero for files Mason University’s Center for New download into Zotero. Zotero will that you have created yourself, such Media and History, Zotero is a free, grab whatever information it can as drafts of research , notes, open-source application that runs about each item and place it into recordings, videos and more, then in the Firefox Web browser. Zotero appropriate fields, such as author, link to those files so that they are con- bills itself as a research workbench, title, journal, issue, date and page nected to the bibliographic record. providing tools not only for captur- ing bibliographic information and making bibliographies, but also for creating notes and annotations, organizing digital files into collections, and searching across or within those collections. Zotero was developed by scholars for scholars, so it includes many features that make doing research more efficient. If I were working on my dissertation now, I Taking notes would rely on Zotero to help me keep control of my research materials. When I show Zotero to col- leagues, many are captivated by one feature — its ability to automatically capture bibliographic information from hundreds of Web sites. Over 250 journal databases, library catalogs, Adding tags

Ne w s from Fo n d r e n 10 Once you’ve captured bib- Fondren catalog, Zotero doesn’t institutions, earned glowing reviews liographic records, you can easily download the publisher or publica- from publications such as Inside build bibliographies. Zotero comes tion date. If you’re working with large Higher Education and PC Magazine, loaded with 10 citation styles, such as collections, Zotero can be sluggish, and won CiteFest 2008, Northwest- Chicago Manual of Style, IEEE and especially if your computer isn’t very ern University’s Library and Aca- Modern Language Association; you powerful. Zotero resides on your demic Technologies group reference can download more than 40 addi- local computer, so if you work on manager contest. tional styles, including Public Library multiple computers it can be a hassle If you’d like to see if Zotero is the of Science Journal and Oxford Art to coordinate your Zotero collections. right tool for you, visit zotero.org to Journal. Even better, you can create Fortunately, Zotero’s developers are view useful online tutorials, download notes and bibliographies as you are working on enhancements that will the software or post questions to the working on a paper in Word. To do allow scholars to access their collec- active user forums. Fondren Library’s so, you need to download and install tions on the Web and share recom- Digital Media Center offers regular the Word plugin from the Zotero site. mendations and citations. Zotero workshops on Zotero. Once you complete the easy set up, recently announced a collaboration a set of six icons will appear in the with the Internet Archive to develop Lisa Spiro Word toolbar. You click the “Zotero the Zotero Commons, which will Director, Digital Media Center Insert Citation” button to locate the allow scholars to share their research lspiro@rice .edu source in your Zotero collections and notes and materials online with one insert a citation in whatever format click. you choose. Similarly, you can select If Zotero doesn’t suit your needs, “Zotero Insert Bibliography” to create you might consider several other a properly-formatted bibliography in bibliographic tools that can help seconds. you manage your research. If Zotero provides users with great you want a Web-based research flexibility in organizing and annotat- tool, check out CiteYouLike or ing research collections. You can set Connotea (both of which are up as many collections and subcollec- free), or try out RefWorks or tions as you like. Unlike the analog EndNote Web. If you prefer a world, where a piece of paper can powerful desktop-based - only go in one folder, you can drag a ence manager, take a look at citation into multiple folders. So that EndNote. However, I’ve found you can more easily find resources, Zotero to be the best all-around you can add your own descriptive bibliographic and research keywords or tags. You can also take tool. Zotero has been endorsed notes in Zotero and associate them by more than 75 educational with bibliographic records or create standalone notes. Zotero offers a Metadata record for Zotero article powerful search tool that allows you to limit your search to particular fields and searches all bibliographic infor- mation, notes and PDF files. Searches can even be stored so that you don’t have to set them up again. Despite my enthusiasm for Zotero, it does have some limita- tions. Zotero doesn’t always capture information properly from Web sites. For instance, when using the The Zotero interface: Library and Collections

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