Things I love (and occasionally hate): Zotero

Zotero, my dearest friend. 

First off lets start with what Zotero is. Zotero is a multi-platform resource collection agent. Its function is to help individuals create a list of sources, such as bibliographies and work cited pages. These sources can be culled from almost any electronic format. Use a book in a paper, find it on Amazon, then click the install-able connector for your browser and Ta-Da! You now have a fully editable sourcing program that can be used in word editors. Your now thinking that sounds nice but what exactly does it do for me? Well, let me tell you a story...

I was surfing OSCAR and One search for some statics regarding polling turn out, exit polls etc for my Political Science class. As I find sources, I am constantly throwing them into my Zotero folder for later review and collection, aka a super book mark system. However I find something that I can use for another paper, say a piece on voting and religion I want to use for my Religion, Theology & Culture 3 class (core requirement). Boom! Throw that bad boy into my folder for RTC 3, and now I have source I would have never found or could have easily lost.

But that's not all. Now I am done with my both my papers, the RTC 3 class wants MLA formatting style while the Political Science class wants Blue Book style. Most people would go to either OWL Perdue (which is another great/amazing source) or the site affectionately known as Son of a Citation. However with Zotero, you simply highlight the sources and then right click "Create Bibliography", go thru the prompts of type and how to save, and then like a genie granting a wish its done, for either format. All sources are done, leaving only inline notes or sources left to be done.

So basically all of my gathering of sources for a paper has been reduced to a few clicks. Finding, organizing, and creating of sources has been automated, leaving me free to procrastinate, err focus on the content of my paper. Did I also mention that Zotero is free?





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