LibGuides: Zoterobib: ZoteroBib

In this section, we'll provide an overview of ZoteroBib. We'll look at how to get the most out of the tool, why you might want to use ZoteroBib, and where to find further ZoteroBib support. If you decide to use ZoteroBib, we recommend working through the entire page. We will cover:

What is ZoteroBib?

ZoteroBib is a free web-based referencing tool that can be used to generate reference lists and in-text citations for your work. It supports thousands of difference referencing styles, including the styles used at Sussex, and is both quick and easy to use. ZoteroBib doesn't require any set up and you won't need to download any software, you simply use it in your web browser.

Remember:

Citation generators, like ZoteroBib, are great for one-off essays and shorter projects, but for longer-term projects, like dissertations, where you have lots of different sources to organise and reference, a full reference management software, like Zotero, will often be better suited.

For more information, see our Zotero guide.

Video Tutorial

Watch the video below for an in-depth tutorial on how to make the most of ZoteroBib's full functionality.

Video Transcript

Welcome to our tutorial on creating citations and bibliographies with Zoterobib.
Zoterobib is a citation generator. It’s essentially a website which helps you to create citations and bibliographies quickly and automatically.

Citation generators, like Zoterobib, are great for one off essays or shorter projects. For long-term, projects, like dissertations, where you’ve got lots of different sources you need to organize and reference, a full piece of reference management software might work better. For more information, see our Zotero guide. The advantage of Zoterobib is it’s quick and easy to use and doesn’t require any set up. You won’t need to create an account or download any software.

Adding references
To access Zoterobib, just google 'Zoterobib' or visit https://zbib.org/. You can start building a bibliography straight away using this ‘cite’ bar.
Generate a reference by entering a source’s URL, ISBN number (which is a unique ID number for a book), a DOI, and, if you’re source is from Pubmed or Arxiv, you could also use the Pubmed or ArXiv ID. Alternatively, you can search for a source using its title.
We recommend using a DOI, ISBN or pubmed/arxiv ID where possible. Because these are official ID numbers, they will generate more accurate references. These may not always be available though, so you can use the URL or search for the title if you need to.

Let’s try adding a journal article. Most journal articles will have a DOI listed along with the other publication information. I’m just going to copy this DOI over to Zoterobib and hit cite. It’s created a reference based on this DOI and shown us a preview. If we scroll down, we can see a reference to this article has been added to our bibliography.

Selecting a style
Now we've added our first reference to our bibliography, we have the option to select a referencing style. Click the drop-down, and either select a style from the available options or click ’10,000+’ other styles available’ to search for another style.
There are lots of different versions and editions of each referencing style. If you’re not sure which one you should be using, check the referencing guidance on Skillshub. The edition you need to use should be listed at the top of the page for your style.
For this demo, I’m using Harvard. We’re currently on Cite Them Right 12th Edition, so I just need to search for this style and select add. Click okay, and Zoterobib will format the bibliography, as well as any more references we add, using this style.

Checking accuracy
Zoterobib will do it’s best to create an accurate reference, but no citation generator is perfect, so you should always check the reference is correct. Go back to the original source and make sure the information Zoterobib has pulled through is accurate. Make sure to check the reference against the guidance on Skillshub as well. If anything doesn’t look right, you can click the reference to edit it and update the information by typing in the different fields of this template. In this case, the reference looks accurate, so I don’t need to make any edits.

Adding a Book
Let’s try adding a book. I want to reference this book on Forest Schools. I could try searching with the title but Zoterobib may struggle to find this specific book. We can use the ISBN to create a more accurate reference. This will be listed with the publishing details for this book – in this case, under ‘Book details.’ I’m going to copy the ISBN, paste it into Zoterobib and hit cite. Zoterobib will then create a reference in Harvard style.
The next step is to check the reference it’s created is accurate. It looks like Zoterobib has struggled to find the place of publication and has added all the different places this book has been published. We need to check the book itself to find the place of publication. If we click into the book, the publication information should be listed on one of the first few pages.
It looks like this book was published in multiple places which is why Zoterobib has gotten a bit confused. The first address listed here is a London address, so I’m going to use London as the place of publication.
If we go back to Zotero we can either hit the ‘Edit’ button or scroll down and click the reference to update it. A pop-up template will appear. We can now change the place of publication to London. Then we just click ‘Done’, and the reference will update.

Sentence vs Title Case
Something to look out for when checking your Zoterobib references, is the capital letters. When you select certain styles, like Harvard or APA, a pop-up will appear explaining this. With these referencing styles, you need to use what’s called sentence case, rather than title case. Basically, only the first word in the title should be capitalized, along with any proper nouns like names of people, countries or organizations, just like with a regular sentence.
Zoterobib will do its best to convert titles into sentence case for you, but it might miss some words that should be capitalized, so we’ll need to edit the reference it creates and add those capitals ourselves.
For example, I’ve added this journal article called ‘Normalizing Instagram’ using it’s DOI, but you can see Instagram isn’t capitalized. Since it’s the name of a particular platform, we need to capitalize it, so I just need to click edit, click into the title box and change the ‘i’ to a capital. Then I click done and the reference will update.
For information on whether to use sentence or title case for your referencing, check the guidance for you style on Skillshub.

Adding a book chapter
Let’s try adding one more item, a chapter in an edited book. I want to reference this chapter ‘Big Fish’ from this book ‘Unpopular Culture.’ Referencing chapters from edited books with Zoterobib can be tricky. In some cases, a book chapter might have its own DOI which you can use to create a pretty accurate reference, but lots of book chapters won’t have a DOI.
If we use the ISBN, Zoterobib will generate a reference for the whole book, not this specific book chapter, so we'll need to add the chapter details ourselves. Click the reference to edit it. Use the 'Item type' drop-down and change this from ‘Book’ to 'Book section', we can then add the details for this chapter. We need to add the chapter title, the chapter author and the page range for this chapter. (Author: Dominika Ferens, pages 41 – 60). Once we’ve added all the correct information, we can hit ‘Done’ and the reference will update.

Copying over your bibliography
Once you've finished building your bibliography, just click the 'copy to clipboard' button and paste it into your document. You can also use the drop-down arrow to view options for downloading your bibliography as a separate file.

Creating in-text citations
You can also use Zoterobib to create your in-text citations. Just go to the reference you want to cite and click the quotation mark icon next to it. A pop-up will appear giving you the option to add a page number (if you’re referencing a specific part of a text) or omit the author (if you’ve already mentioned the author’s name in your writing). Then click ‘Copy citation’ and paste it into your document. Zoterobib will have formatted the citation in line with your chosen style.

Saving your bibliography
It’s important to remember that your Zoterobib bibliography is not saved anywhere permanently. It’s only saved to your cache and cookies in your browser, so if you clear browsing history or access Zoterobib from any other device, your bibliography will not appear. To make sure you don’t lose your bibliography, we recommend creating a link to it using this button. You can then copy and paste this link into your document. Now you can come back, later open the link in your document and continue working on this bibliography in Zoterobib.

That’s all for this tutorial. Thanks for watching.

Below is a glossary for some of the terms used in ZoteroBib and elsewhere in this guide:

DOI - A DOI (digital object identifier) is a unique identifier that is assigned to online resources like journal articles, data sets, and technical reports. A DOI is persistent, meaning it will not change even if the location of the item changes over time.
URL - A URL (uniform resource locator) is a web address, the string of letters and/or numbers (usually starting with http or https) that lead you to a website.
ISBN - An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is a unique numeric book identifier assigned to each separate edition and variation of a publication. For example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book will each have a different ISBN.
Cache and cookies - Your web browser's cache and cookies are files created by sites you visit. They make your online experience easier and quicker by saving browsing data.

Adding References

To start generating citations and adding items to your bibliography, you will use the ZoteroBib cite bar.

By entering an identifier for an item (either a URL, a DOI, an ISBN, a PubMed or arXiv ID, or just the item title) and hitting 'Cite', you will generate a reference entry for this item. You can continue to add items in this way to build up a reference list (AKA bibliography) for your project.

If ZoteroBib cannot find your item, you can use the 'Manual Entry' option to create the reference yourself.

Referencing Style

Once we've added our first reference, we can select the referencing style we want to use from the blue drop-down menu at the top of our bibliography. There are over 10,000 styles to choose from.

Editing a Reference

ZoteroBib generally does a good job creating accurate references, but no citation generator is perfect, so make sure to always check your references are correct by comparing the reference to the original item.

If you need to edit a reference, you can do this by clicking on the reference in your bibliography list, which will bring up all of the item's details. In this window, you can add any required information or edit any incorrect information in the reference.

Remember:

If you want to know what information you need to include for your reference style, check the relevant guide on Skills Hub.

Sentence vs Title Case

Something to look out for when checking your ZoteroBib references is the capital letters. Certain styles — APA and Harvard, for example — require the use of sentence case rather than title case. This basically means only the first word in the title should be capitalised, along with any proper nouns like names of people, countries or organisations, just like in a normal sentence.

When you select one of these styles, ZoteroBib will let you know in a pop-up that it will convert the references into sentence case for you. However, as the pop-up explains, it may miss some words that should be capitalised, so we'll need to edit the reference (as shown above) and add the capital letters ourselves.

Citations and Bibliographies

Copying Your Bibliography

Once you've finished building your bibliography — and you have checked all your references — you can export it by clicking the 'Copy to Clipboard'; button and then pasting it into your document.

You can also use the drop-down arrow to view options for downloading your bibliography as a separate file.

Creating In-text Citations

ZoteroBib also allows you to generate in-text citations. Simply go to the reference you want to cite and click the quotation mark icon next to it.

A pop-up will appear giving you the option to add a page number (if you're referencing a specific part of the text) or omit the author (if you've already mentioned the author's name in your writing).

Then click 'Copy Citation' and paste it into your document. ZoteroBib will have formatted the citation in your chosen style.

Saving Your Bibliography

It's important to remember that your ZoteroBib bibliography is not saved anywhere permanently. It's only saved to the cache and cookies in your web browser, meaning if you clear your browsing history, or access Zoterobib from a different device, your references will not appear.

To avoid losing your bibliography, you can create a permanent link by clicking the 'Create' button underneath your references and then the 'Copy URL' button. We would recommend then pasting this stable URL into your document (or somewhere you won't lose it), so you can come back, open the link, and continue working with your bibliography in ZoteroBib.