Q. How can I organize my citations in Zotero?

You can organize citations in Zotero using collections and tags. Collections are like a folder system, while tags are keywords you assign to a source. Each has their benefits for organizing your sources.

Collections

• Good for broad organization around topics (ex. "Social Psychology") or projects (ex. "ENGL 1020 Researched Argument)
• Easy to browse
• Citations can be put in more than one collection
• Can create subcollections within collections for narrower categorization
• When adding a citation with the Zotero Connector, you can choose to put the citation directly into a collection

Tags

• Good for organizing by specific details (ex. "ethics of large language models," "qualitative methods") or your workflow (ex. "to read," "needs summary")
• Easy to search
• Can create as many tags as you want for a citation
• Tags can be color coded (desktop app only)
• When adding a citation with the Zotero Connector, it may automatically add tags based on keywords or subject terms that it finds on the source page