Scholarly communication, and wrangling it with Zotero iSchool Orientation Dorothea Salo

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Photo: mine, reuse it if you want! I declare it CC0.

Corollary: you will not learn everything you ever need to know here! Not everything you will need to know is presently known! And things change!

Corollary to the corollary: while you’re here you need to learn how to “keep current” and “remember useful stuff.”

Corollary to the corollary to the corollary: your own head is not big enough to contain all the useful stuff you’ll need to remember.

So start picking out some memory-aid tools now! Zotero is one! There are others! I use Shaarli on my personal webhost. No webhost? Try raindrop.io.

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Citation: what it’s for • Courtesy to those who came before you • We all stand on the shoulders of giants! • Convenience for those who come after you! • Credit (especially relevant in workplace assessment) • I’m academic staff, not faculty, so I am not assessed on how often my publications are cited. (I am assessed on whether I produce publications!) • iSchool faculty are assessed on this in tenure and promotion processes. (Not all by itself, of course! But still.) So is the iSchool as a whole. • If you end up working in a tenure environment, future academic librarians or full-time iSchool instructors/faculty… you could be too! • Conversation, like @-ing somebody on social media. “Hi, I’m quoting/commenting on this thing you wrote.”

Citation styles • if you’re thinking “ugh, can’t I just link?” I’m with you… but no. • In scholarly and professional writing, citation is a highly rule-driven activity. • Irritatingly, there are lots of different sets of rules citation styles! • When my prior research-collaboration group discussed where we wanted to publish our results, “what’s that journal’s citation style?” is actually one of the questions we asked! • Don’t try to cite by hand. You will hate yourself. And us! And scholarly communication! • Use Zotero. USE ZOTERO. USE ZOTERO!!!!!

Installing Zotero • Two steps: • Installing Zotero itself • Installing a browser plugin, the “Zotero Connector.” • For the fi rst step, https://www.zotero.org/support/ installation should have you covered. • For the second, go to your browser’s add-on repository / web store and search for Zotero.

Using Zotero Step 1: Have Zotero open • You can’t use the in-browser Zotero Connector button to save stuff to Zotero unless Zotero is running. • You also can’t put citations in a document unless Zotero is running. • So when you’re working on an iSchool assignment involving citations, get in the habit of starting Zotero fi rst! • Honestly… I have it in my work Mac’s “Login Items” preferences, so it starts up whenever I reboot. • I am a GIANT NERD, however. You don’t have to do this. In case it helps, though…

Step 2: Click the button to save to Zotero! (yes, I have a lot of stuff in my browser toolbar)

Step 2: Check Zotero’s work • Sometimes it’s beautiful. Sometimes it’s wretched. • (This isn’t Zotero’s fault — it’s a question of how nicely the website plays with Zotero, really.) • ALWAYS check news stories and blog/social media posts you put into Zotero. • Books and journal articles usually work better. Not always, but usually. • Zotero calls a lot of things a “Web Page” that are actually reports, news stories, journal articles… • It matters because citation styles treat these differently! • Always fi x this mistake when you see it! • Check capitalization in titles. This is style-dependent! Some styles want Title Case For Everything. Others don’t.

Step 2a: Check dates. • There is no citation style on this earth that doesn’t want you to put the date (of publication, of appearance, whatever) into your citations. • Dates are frequently hard to capture in Zotero. • So check dates. Every time. • This is the commonest reason I have to go back and fi x stuff in Zotero.

Yes!

Here’s a news story…

… which Zotero mangled. nope! news story! sorry, what?!

Better! ISO 8601! YYYY-MM-DD the one true and honest date format! use it always! You can click on any fi eld to make it editable. Most are text boxes; “Item Type” is a dropdown.

Yay, citations! Now what? • Now you actually put them in what you’re writing. • YOU NEED TO KNOW WHICH CITATION STYLE YOU’RE USING FIRST. • LIS is a hybrid discipline! We have humanists, social scientists, and “hard” scientists. This means we use a lot of different citation styles! I’m sorry! • If you ever have me as an instructor: I DON’T CARE, pick your favorite. But other iSchool instructors care a lot, so if we don’t specify, ASK. • (In my publishing life, I’ve mostly had to use APA, but Chicago and MLA have also come up. I mostly publish social-science-y stuff, a little humanities. Mostly journal articles, a few book chapters.)

In Word…

Click “Document Preferences.”

In Google Docs…

Adding a citation • Put your cursor where you want the footnote/endnote marker or in-text citation. • This, too, varies by citation style! • From the Zotero menu, pick “Add/Edit Citation.” • You will get a red-bordered search box. Search in it for what you want to cite. • Title, author, whatever — Zotero looks in everything it’s got. • Zotero should show you a list of possible citations. • Select the one you want. Wait for Zotero to insert it. Done!

Here’s what this looks like.

Questions?