Part 1: Familiarize yourself with Zotero (Walk-through)

Instructions

During today’s lab you will need to use Zotero to complete the Lab 1 APA & Zotero Worksheet. You may use either the lab computers or install the program on your own personal device. For more information about how to install and setup Zotero go here.

Practice Question

Check your work as you go along!

When you think you have entered all the necessary information correctly for each item in Zotero, generate the citationTo create a bibliography or a citations list in Zotero, highlight one or more references and then right-click (or control-click on Macs) to select “Create Bibliography from Selected Item(s)…”. Then select ‘APA 7’ citation style for your citation/bibliography format and choose a Bibliography. Then select ‘Copy to Clipboard’ or save it as a file. and copy/paste it into the associated answer box. Keep trying until each box turns green!

Give it a try below! Copy this citation and paste it into the box below:

Bird, B. (Director). (2015). Ratatouille [Video recording]. Walt Disney Pictures; Pixar Animation Studios.

The APA 7 citation is:

Step 1: Create a new collection

Create a new collection in Zotero and name it [Your Name] APA Walk-Through

Zotero collections are like folders. Adding an item to a specific collection automatically adds it to your overall Zotero library. But you need to keep track of what items are in each collection for when you export your final references list!

To remove an item from a collection, right-click on item (middle panel) ➜ select Remove item from collection...

Step 2: Find a source and add the item to your collection

  1. Use Google scholar to find the 2024 journal article titled ChatGPT is bullshit

  2. Download and save (locally) a copy of the article (somewhere you can easily find it!)

  3. Find the in your file manager. Now, drag & drop the file directly into your [Your name] APA Walk-Through collection (in the left-hand panel within Zotero).

Zotero should have correctly identified this item as a journal article and automatically populated the information fields in the right-side panel with almost everything you need to create an APA 7 citation.

But you still need to review the details to make sure there are no errors! Programs freqently make errors!

Step 4: Review & Edit article metadata

  1. Select (click on) the item you created in the middle panel. Look at the metadata information that appeared in the right-hand panel. Is everything correctly formatted for an APA 7 style journal article?

APA 7 style has very specific rules about capitalization. Generally, all titles should be in Sentence case rather than Title case meaning:

This would be correct

But This Is Very Incorrect

There is an option in Zotero to switch between these two options (next to the title metadata) but you always need to double check!

There are two items associated with this article in that middle-panel: the pdf and what is called a parent-item.

You need the parent-item because that is where you store the metadata. You can see what attachments are connected to an item by clicking on the arrow.

  1. Using the Journal Reference Checklist handout or the table below, review and edit the item metadata to make sure that you have everything you need to cite the journal article in APA 7 style. If anything is missing, add it! If anything is improperly formatted, fix it!

For this article the Pages field should read: “Article 38”

Although APA typically asks that you report the first-last page numbers, this journal uses article numbers instead of traditional pages.

This can be confusing! But all you need to do when you encounter a journal with article numbers like this is to enter “Article XX” into the Pages field in Zotero.

Step 5: Generate the APA 7 citation using Zotero

Now that you have confirmed all the information is properly entered, you are ready to ask Zotero to create your APA 7 citation. Give it a try!

  1. Did you select Sentence case instead of Title case for the Title? Remember that APA 7 requires you to only capitalize the first word of each sentence in the article title. Note that you also capitalize the first word after a colon: Like this.

Paste the APA 7 citation below

Right-click on the item (middle panel) ➜ Create Bibliography from Items… ➜ Select Citation Style: American Psychological Association (APA) 7th edition ➜ Copy to Clipboard

The APA 7 citation is:

Step 6: Add another journal article manually

Let’s try to add another journal article to our same collection. Only, this time, we want to add a that is more tricky for Zotero to handle.

  1. Use PsychInfo from the UNL Library databases to search for the classic 1975 journal article “Hindsight ≠ foresight: The effect of outcome knowledge on judgment under uncertainty”

  2. Download, save and drag the into your [Your name] APA Walk-Through collection in Zotero.

  3. Review the metadata in the right panel. Unlike the previous article, Zotero did not fully index the pdf automatically. This means we have to manually add in most of the information ourselves.

  4. Once you have entered all the information you need, ask Zotero to generate your second citation and check it below!

This article has a non-letter character in the title. You can usually copy and paste from the PDF but that will not work in this case (likely an issue with the older PDF formatting). But you still need to make sure your title section in Zotero reads: Hindsight ≠ foresight: The effect of outcome knowledge on judgment under uncertainty

Paste the APA 7 citation below

The APA 7 citation is:

Step 7: Add another journal article manually

Let’s add another journal article to our collection. This time, I have found the for you. You can download it by clicking below.

  1. As before, save and drag this new into your [Your name] APA Walk-Through collection in Zotero.

  2. The should appear in the middle panel. But this time, Zotero did not create a parent item for you. This means we have to create one before we can manually add in any metadata.

To create a parent item:

Right-click on the item (middle panel) ➜ Create Parent Item...

Zotero right-click context menu with ‘Create Parent Item’ option highlighted

Now select Manual Entry

Zotero dialog box for identifying a file with a field for DOI, ISBN, PMID, or arXiv ID, and a ‘Manual Entry’ button highlighted

  1. Now that you have a parent item, enter the metadata manually.

  2. Once you have entered all the information you need, ask Zotero to generate your third citation and check it below!

Make sure you have spelled all the author’s names correctly. If their last name begins with a lower-case letter, make sure that is reflected in Zotero.

Paste the APA 7 citation below

The APA 7 citation is:

Step 8: Adding items with DOI magic!

You can also add items into your [Your name] APA Walk-Through collection without a . One way to do this is to use the DOI identifier for a journal article. This is a unique number assigned to a specific article or other digital object (magazine, dataset, r-package, etc).

The icon to the right of the one where you add an item manually in Zotero, allows you to add via a DOI, ISBN (for books), etc. (via MAGIC-WAND-BUTTON!). Note that doing it this way will add the item, but NOT the PDF of it. However, it will still grab all of the metadata for you! This may be of help on the homework (hint hint).

  1. Try to add this article to your collection: 10.1177/0956797615572232

  2. Review & edit the metadata using the same process as before.

  3. Once you have entered all the information you need, ask Zotero to generate your third citation and check it below!

Paste the APA 7 citation below

The APA 7 citation is:

Step 9: More Practice with Other types of sources

You can also use the magic wand feature with ISBNs (and other digital identifiers) to add a Book or a section of a book to your collection.

  1. Add this book chapter titled Juries compared with what? The need for a baseline and attention to real-world complexity found here. Use the DOI number provided on that page to add this chapter (not the entire book) to to your [Your name] APA Walk-Through collection.

  2. Review the metadata in the right panel. Unlike with the previous entries, Zotero recognized that this is a book section and started to fill in the metadata accordingly. Using the Other sources handout included below, review and edit the metadata.

When you use the DOI for this chapter, Zotero will automatically record the ISBN: 978-1-4338-2704-4 978-1-4338-2782-2 which is the identifier for the entire book. But sometimes you can find a unique ISBN In many cases book chapters are assigned their own ISBNs.

  1. Once you have entered all the information you need, ask Zotero to generate your second citation and check it below!
  1. Make sure you set the title to sentence case.
  2. Are the author(s) and editor(s) in the correct order?

Paste the APA 7 citation below

The APA 7 citation is:

Unfortunately, not all digital sources provide an ISBN or DOI number you can use with Zotero. Sometimes, you have to manually add in the information yourself (or use the Zotero browser connector).

Practice using other types of source by adding this as a Newspaper article article.

Use Newspaper article as the Item Type. For more details about how to cite this type of source, view the APA Website.

Organizations as authors should be capitalized appropriately and entered in a single field for Author. In this case, the author should read: Staff, T. O.

Paste the APA 7 citation below

The APA 7 citation is:

Step 10: Generating APA 7 Style report and References page

Now that you have a complete collection of sources, Zotero makes it easy to generate an APA 7 style References page or a report.

Go to your Lab 3 worksheet. Use the collection you created here [Your Name] APA Walk-Through to generate a reportTo create a report, right-click (ctrl-click on macOS) an item or a selection of items in the center pane and select “Generate Report from Selected Item(s)…”. You can also right-click a collection in the left column and select “Generate Report from Collection”. from this collection. Copy/paste the report into the worksheet.

This is not the same as a full reference section. But you can copy/paste the full report in the window that pops up.

Now, go on to the next page to start Part 2.