Skip to Main Content

Zotero for Law

An expert guide to using Zotero reference management software.

Editing references

Zotero will automatically import metadata from web pages into the Info tab of the item in your library.  If the metadata is incomplete or incorrect, you will need to edit it.
It is essential that users verify that the records in their library are accurate, which means you will still need to know the rules for your particular citation style. To edit a reference, select it from the center column.  You can view and edit its bibliographic information via the Info tab of the right column. 
Changes are saved automatically as they are made.  Some fields have special features, which are discussed below.

Titles

Titles are typically either Title Case or Sentence Case. Zotero will automatically convert titles to Title Case formatting as required by AGLC.

You can manually change the case by right-clicking on the title, and choose to ‘Transform Text’ to either ‘Title Case’ or ‘Sentence case’.

Zotero does not recognise proper nouns, and transformed titles should always be checked for capitalization errors. Zotero screenshot: title field highlighted

Authors and creators

Each item can have zero or more creators, such as authors, editors, etc. 

  • To change the creator type, click the creator field label (e.g. ‘Author’)

  • To add or delete creators, click on the minus or plus buttons

  • To reorder the list of creators, select and drag the 'six dots' icon

Toggle between single- and two-field mode by clicking the ‘Switch to single field’ / ‘Switch to two fields’ buttons at the end of the creator field. Single-field mode should be used for institutions (e.g. when the author is ‘Company A’), while two-field mode (last name, first name) should be used for personal names. 

Journal titles

Journal articles are sometimes cited with the abbreviated journal title. Zotero stores the journal title (Publication) and journal title abbreviation (Journal Abbr) in separate fields. For AGLC, all journal titles must be listed in the Publication field (unabbreviated). 

Zotero screenshot: Publication field highlighted

Using HTML to customise outputs

Some legal document types don't work perfectly within the document types Zotero has available. In these instances you can make some changes using HTML tags.

Zotero can bold, italicise, and change your text to superscript and subscript.  Use the following HTML tags to make the changes. 
  • Italics: <i>  . . . . . .   </i>
  • Bold: <b> . . . . . .   </b>
  • Superscript: <sup>  . . . .  </sup>
  • Subscript: <sub>  . . . .  </sub> 
The above codes work like an on–off switch, so if the field would ordinarily be italicised then the text between <i> and </i> would be de-italicised
Similarly, if you were to write <i><i> and </i></i> then the switch will have been flicked twice making the text the same as the default for the field

Adding URLs to references

If a URL is in the URL field, it will appear in the citation in Word enclosed in '< >'. 

According to AGLC4 Rule 4.4, a URL may be included as part of the citation to aid its retrieval. URLs are enclosed within point brackets ('< >') and placed at the end of the citation after pinpoints. The date of retrieval should not be included after the URL.

A permalink may be used in addition to or instead of a URL. The permalink should be preceded by the words 'archived at' and should appear at the end of the citation.

If you want to store a link, but not have it appear in your citation, instead of storing it in the URL field, add the link as an attachment as follows: 

  1. Right-click on your reference
  2. Select Add Attachment
  3. Choose Web link

Zotero screenshot: Store url link steps

Note: Zotero also saves 'Snapshots' of web pages as attachments. These are copies of the pages as they currently exist and  automatically import when adding an item using the Zotero connector. Snapshots can take up storage space and may be unnecessary. Users can prevent Zotero from automatically taking snapshots via Edit > Setting > General > Un-check the "Automatically take snapshots when creating items from web pages" box.

Zotero Settings screenshot: Automatically take snapshots when creating items from web pages highlighted.


Library Instagram

Library Blogs

Library Contacts