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use_cases [2012/04/11 11:49] – [Theses and Dissertations] rmzelle | use_cases [2019/10/01 12:32] (current) – Removed in favor of https://www.zotero.org/why bwiernik | ||
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- | ====== Use Cases ====== | ||
- | Zotero is a powerful and adaptable tool for scholars and educators of all stripes. | ||
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- | The research paper is, of course, the staple of a student' | ||
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- | Zotero evangelists will regularly find themselves in the position of giving presentations on using Zotero in these different contexts. This document aims to provide you with ways of approaching each of these topics. Of course, it functions equally well as a quick user guide. There should be something useful here for everyone. | ||
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- | ===== Short Research Paper ===== | ||
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- | Let's say your audience is writing a five-page research paper with five works cited. Zotero' | ||
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- | Once the items are part of the student' | ||
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- | It's worth encouraging faculty whose students will be using Zotero to employ Smart Bibliographies. This simply means that their online lists of references will be easily readable by Zotero. This is simple to do. The following link should get both you and them started: | ||
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- | [[http:// | ||
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- | ===== Major Research/ | ||
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- | When you get into the realm of writing a major research paper, it becomes more important to tailor your workflow to your field of study. Most serious research employs journal articles as important sources, but this is especially true for the sciences. Most journals are available as part of online databases and Zotero can save full articles and their associated metadata from a great many of them. In order to automatically save the full-text PDFs of articles available online, this feature must be enabled in the [[/ | ||
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- | Users should know how to use the address bar icon to create new library items from online sources. It is important to distinguish between saving an item from metadata embedded on a webpage and saving a webpage itself. The former is done through the aforementioned address bar icon and the latter through the " | ||
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- | While secondary sources are also of great import to the humanities, primary sources are much more important by comparison, perhaps even paramount. For this reason, manually creating items in Zotero is essential to humanities researchers. By clicking the New Item button in the Zotero toolbar, users can create a wide variety of items: artwork, letters, films, maps, manuscripts, | ||
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- | Of increasing importance at this point is [[word_processor_integration|word processor integration]]. Zotero, by itself, can generate citations and bibliographies for you, but only in response to specific commands, and once they' | ||
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- | Another element that becomes increasingly important is that of data backup. There are many options at your disposal, not least of which is using [[2.0]]. However, the gold standard for backup is to archive the Zotero data directory periodically. This is pretty easy to find. Simply open the Zotero preferences window and click on the [[/ | ||
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- | ===== Theses and Dissertations ===== | ||
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- | A thesis paper is like a research paper, only much more so. For that reason, it should be apparent that the features explained in the previous section should be that much more important. Backup and the word processor plugins are both absolutely essential. Certainly, people have written theses and dissertations without Zotero, and continue to do so, but any systems used to duplicate its coordinative features consume a great deal of time and effort. Zotero streamlines the whole process and lets you devote more time to research and writing. | ||
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- | Zotero' | ||
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- | While tags add depth and complexity to the data at your disposal, even without them, the advanced search feature can help you glean new information from your library. Let's say you're studying literary criticism of Shakespeare' | ||
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- | Since it resides directly in your browser, Zotero integrates itself with ease into your workflow. A great deal of scholarly research is conducted online and Zotero saves you the trouble of jumping from one program to another to store all your data. It simplifies and streamlines the research process from beginning to end. | ||
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- | An important thing to note is that Zotero' | ||
- | ===== Other Uses ===== | ||
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- | Zotero lends itself to use in many other respects. By using Zotero throughout their academic careers, grad students can have a complete repository of notes and reactions at their disposal when it comes times to take comprehensive exams. You can prepare for oral exams by tailoring searches and using the results in much the way you would use flashcards, checking your knowledge of important documents and ideas against details stored in your library. | ||
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- | If you are part of a small group collaborating on a project, you can, using Zotero 2.0, create a Zotero group to share a library between the group members. This makes it easy to keep up on research each group member is conducting and sharing thoughts and ideas. Larger groups can integrate Zotero citations into collaborative websites, using [[/ | ||
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- | Teachers instructing students in the process of conducting research can evaluate their progress by having them generate Zotero [[reports]] of the sources they have compiled to that point. | ||
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- | ====== Zotero and Your Institution ====== | ||
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- | There are many different ways and many different places Zotero can be adopted at your institution. The ultimate goal, of course, is for students to embrace it, but in order for that to happen, they must know about it. Fortunately, | ||
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- | Students are not the only ones at your institution who can gain by adopting Zotero, however. In earlier versions of Zotero, it was necessary to bring your library around on a USB stick to use it in a school library. With Zotero 2.0, however, it is now a simple matter to sync libraries from online servers. Having Zotero pre-loaded on every library computer would allow students to sit down anywhere and pick up their research right where they left off by simply entering their Zotero.org and WebDAV credentials. Writing centers can use Zotero much as it would be in a freshman writing course. It's simply a good habit to get into and can contribute significantly to improving a student' | ||
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- | Centers for Teaching Excellence can show teachers the value of Zotero in a classroom setting. Apart from being good for students, generally, teachers instructing students in the process of conducting research can evaluate their progress by having them generate reports of the sources they have compiled to that point. This same feature can be used by assessment groups to track trends in students' | ||
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- | Campus installs of Zotero are quite easy. It is simply a matter of including Zotero in the master disk image. The Word and OpenOffice plugins can also be distributed in the same manner. Many schools provide network storage to their students. If it is configured to support the WebDAV protocol, students can make use of it to sync their files, in addition to using their Zotero.org account to sync their library data. |