Zotero for Mac: Capturing Article Citations & Full Text

- CAPTURING AN ARTICLE'S CITATION -

When you find an article you like in your list of search results, click the title of the article to go to its full entry screen.  This is the best spot for capturing a citation.

In the example below, you would click on The Regulation of Tornado Intensity by Updraft Width.  Take a look at the full entry screen for this article.

WHEN THE FULL TEXT IS IN THE DATABASE YOU'RE SEARCHING

You can tell that the database has this article's full text because it has HTML and PDF icons and links.

Next, click the capture icon (underlined in green below) which will be in the upper right-hand corner of Chrome.  Done!

WHEN THE FULL TEXT IS IN A DIFFERENT DATABASE

You can tell that this article's full text is in a different database because it has the Search for Full Text button.

In this situation, there are two full entry screens--one in the current database and one in a different database, the one that has the full text.  Click the Search for Full Text button and on the next screen, the name of the other database to go to the second full entry screen.  Then click the capture icon.

- CAPTURING AN ARTICLE'S FULL TEXT -

Frequently, when you click the capture icon on an article's full entry screen, you will capture the full text as well as the citation.

When Zotero can't capture the full text at the same time as the citation, you can download the full text in the usual way (some of our databases will do this automatically) then drag and drop the PDF onto the matching citation in Zotero's middle panel.

- DOUBLECHECKING FOR FULL TEXT -

The PDF icon showed up in  Zotero's Saving to pop-up window when you captured an article but did you really get the full text?

You can doublecheck in Zotero's middle panel.  In the example below which shows a detail of the middle panel, the first two citations have tiny PDF icons.  You got the full text.  The third citation has a little blue dot.  You have an offline snapshot of one page of a website.  The last citation has a blank square; you did not get the full text.

- PDF IS BEST -

Why?  Because Zotero has a built-in PDF reader with some very helpful features for students.  Just double click any of the tiny PDF icons in a Zotero list to start using it.  It does not work with HTML full text.  See the next tab of this guide for details.