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Zotero: Annotated Bibliography

Zotero is a free extension for your web browser that acts as a citation management system. You can save, organize, format your citations in your paper, and more.

CSL Files

Right click the link(s) above and save the file. Make sure you have Zotero open, then click Edit>Preferences>Cite. Click the button with the plus sign across from "Get additional style" link, then navigate to the saved csl file. Note that some csl files may use the Extra field, while another might use the abstract field. 

These files were found at:

Create an Annotated Bibliography with Zotero

1.  Download the .csl files in the left panel of this window to your desktop. Double-click and select Install.

2.  Open Zotero. Enter your personal annotations in the "Extra" field in the third panel in Zotero. There is no limit to the amount of characters in this field for use, though if you sync with an online Zotero account it will cut off after 64k of text (several thousand characters).

screenshot of extra field circled in red

3.  Highlight the citations you wish to have in your annotated bibliography.

screenshot of list of citations with some highlighted

4.  Right-click on the highlighted citations and select "Create Bibliography from Items."

screen capture of menu with "create bibliography from items" highlighted

5.  Select the annotated citation style desired (making sure it has "Annotated" by it), then click the radio button Save as RTF.

screen capture of style selection, output mode bibliography, and output method save as rtf

6.  Click OK, name the file, and save it to your computer as an RTF, as shown.

screen capture of save as screen

7.  Open the document in Word, and voila.  Annotated bibliography. Edit out unnecessary paragraph marks, as they may create spaces between annotations.

Subject Guide

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Lisa Bartle
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