[Tutorial/Workflow/Doc] Zotero Crash Course

[TinasheMTapera]

🧾 Summary

Zotero is extremely powerful but underutilized in the lab. This
tutorial will cover the basics of using Zotero for reference
management, including how to create collections, add references,
and generate citations in various formats. By the end of this
tutorial, you should be able to efficiently manage your references
and streamline your writing process collaboratively in the
shared library.

🎯 Learning Goals / Outcomes

What should a reader understand or be able to do after following this tutorial/workflow?

• Download and set up Zotero for your harvard account (full paid access)
• Join the shared collection for the lab
• add references to the shared collection
• Generate and export citations
• take notes on references and pdfs in Zotero
• browser extension for saving references
• personalization: tags, extensions (read status, better notes, vscode, overleaf)
• how to share paper URIs (as opposed to sending pdfs back and forth)

📦 Required Tools, Packages, or Data

List any software packages, datasets, or computing platforms used (e.g., R, Python, FASRC, GeoPandas, etc.).

• Tools: Zotero desktop app, Zotero browser extension, Zotero web library, Zotero plugins (e.g., Better Notes, Zotfile, betterbibtex, read status, LLM integration), Overleaf, VSCode)
• Libraries:
• Data source(s):

📄 Outline / Structure

Provide a brief outline of the sections or steps in the document:

1. Introduction
2. Setup
3. Key Steps
4. Conclusion / Next Steps

🔗 Related Materials

Link to related GitHub repos, issues, lab protocols, or previous examples:

• Zotero website
• Zotero documentation
• Zotero plugins
• Zotero browser extension
• Zotero web library
• Zotero desktop app
• Overleaf
• VSCode
• better notes
• Zotfile
• Better BibTeX
• read status

🚦Status & Next Steps

What is the current status?

• Proposal
• In Progress
• Ready for Review
• Completed

Any notes on who will write or review the content?