Amazing Zotero!
Look beyond simple citation, Zotero is a reference management software that has been used in a number of colleges and Universities. Today, I’m going to introduce such tool by firstly focusing on several of its features such as Free-of-charge, compatibility, synchronization, while also writing down some personal experiences with this software.
About Zotero…
Developed by Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University (GMU), Zotero’s name was being created as “to master” from Albanian. In order to master referencing sources, such software has been updating since 2006, they’ve got Zotero 1.0, which is the first edition with potential bugs existed, till Zotero 4.0, which, according to the information provided by Wikipedia, “release in April 2013, includes new features such as automatic journal abbreviations, colored tags, on-demand file syncing.” While its other competitors charged for their software from $25 to $299.5, Zotero is free, with the expendable online storage available for a small amount of money: approximately $20 for 2 GB. Also, it is an open source software, meaning that, quoted from opensource.com, this is “something that can be modified and shared because its design is publicly accessible.” Also, as we go to Zotero’s official page, we can see just down below the red “Download Now” button, that it is compatible with Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems.
User’s Experience:
It is pretty easy to use! This is the first thought that ever comes into my mind when I started using Zotero. For me, I usually use the Google Chrome browser for internet searching, and with Zotero’s setting, doing citation while writing essays cannot be easier! To be more specific, when I want to make reference to certain website, all that I need to do is firstly, open the Zotero software, and then, right click on the website page and select “Save to Zotero (Web page)” shown as below, then I successfully add such resource in my personal library. Then I will open my Microsoft Words, and on the toolbar we will select “add-ins”, following by just clicking a series of Zotero’s “Bibliographic management” tools to do the in-text citation. Honestly speaking, it is easier than I thought initially!
Also, Zotero did a good job at helping you formulate your research and citation with just a single click. However, its interface is kind of old, comparing to Papers, which is a Fee-based citation software after 30 days of free trials, there is a lot of room for Zotero to improve! This is the main point where I thought Zotero does not do so well…
Talk About Special Power?
I think that one special feature is that it will automatically synchronize all of your data with many of your devices, and, also, with just one easy click. To be more specific, after finished gathering information, I just need to, firstly saves it to Zotero, and then click on Sync with Zotero Server, and when I’m using another computer, I can just extract my research on that computer, which not only save me a lot of time by not going back and forth for collecting data, but it also helps me organize and preserve my research data so that I do have the possibility to go back and make some reference in the future if needed.
Therefore…
I would definitely recommend others to use this citation manager, because firstly, it is a free, and open source software, which not only compatible with the major operating system such as IOS and Windows, but it also is fairly easy to use. Besides, with the automatic synchronization function, you won’t need to worry too much about accessing your personal library from anywhere else in the world!
