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Research Guides | Library | Amherst College

Education Studies Research Guide

Zotero for Managing Sources

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free tool that collects, manages, and formats citations and bibliographies. You can attach PDFs, notes, and images to your references; arrange your sources into collections for different projects or classes; and tag them for easy searching or to jump-start chunks of your writing. Insert citations to Word or Google Docs as you write, and create a formatted bibliography or works cited page with one click!

Check out our Zotero "step by step" guide to try it out yourself, sign up for a library workshop to get started, or make an appointment with a research librarian for troubleshooting and pro tips—it's especially useful to get started with it early in a big project. Questions? Ask a librarian, at the reference desk or virtually!

NEW! The library now provides unlimited storage to all Zotero users! If you have your Amherst email address associated with your Zotero account, this will automatically be visible under Current Plan > Institutional Storage settings on zotero.org. If you registered with a different email address, you can add your @amherst.edu address to your account when logged in at https://www.zotero.org/settings/account

Contact the Writing Center

Need to hone your writing or oral presentation skills? Amherst College's Writing Center Associates are available to meet with you to discuss your specific class assignment, honors thesis, application essay, creative writing project, or speech.

Citing & Managing Sources

Citation is an important element in research and creating new knowledge: crediting the scholarship that you're building on, and creating a path for your readers to follow your process. The basic principle is to include all information necessary to track down a resource, but different citation styles format that in different ways.

Generally, the field of Education uses APA format. If you are not sure which citation style to use, ask your instructor.

Zotero is the freely available tool we recommend, developed specifically for academic research, that helps you collect, manage, annotate, and cite your sources. It's available in all computer labs on campus, and you can download it on your own computer.