Zotero for Law Students   Tags: citation_management, law  

Zotero (pronounced "zoh-TAIR-oh") is citation managment software that helps you organize your research and generate citations in Bluebook format. Zotero is a free Firefox add-on that collects, manages, and cites research sources. Its integration with your web browser makes it easy to save citations from a wide range of resources, including webpages and most databases. Zotero will sync citations across computers (so you can have your citations stored on multiple computers).

Be aware that unlike RefWorks, Zotero requires a download of the browser plugin, and is therefore not usable on public access computers, such as those in the library and the computer lab.

Zotero requires Mozilla Firefox, but it will run on any operating system. Installation only takes a few seconds. To install, go to http://www.zotero.org/ and click the red "Download Now" button and follow the instructions. If you have any problems, check the Zotero installation page.

Law School students will want to customize Zotero so that it generates citations in Bluebook format.

Once you open the Preferences, click the Styles tab and then click the Cite icon. Select "Bluebook Law Review (dev)" from the list of options.

Finally, click the Export icon, and again select "Bluebook Law Review (dev)" from the list of options.

Click the Zotero button at the bottom right corner of your browser to open your library. At the top left of the Zotero pane is a folder button with a green plus sign. Click this to create a new "collection."

Create collections to organize your references. Collections are like file folders on your computer, but a reference can be in more than one collection at a time. For example, you can save a book about comparative constitutional law in both your "Comparative Law" and your "Constitutional Law" collections without having to make separate copies of the reference.