Mat-Su College: Zotero, a free citation manager

It is easy to use the Zotero Connector browser plugin to automatically save references as you go along. But sometimes you will want or need to manually save references in Zotero:

• If you have a couple of sources, and you didn't use Zotero Connector to add them to Zotero when you found them, it is often faster to type them in manually, rather than re-finding them
• You might have an item that can't be found online, in which case you obviously can't use Zotero Connector
• Maybe the reference Zotero Connector creates isn't very good; in cases like that, it can be easier to just do a manual entry

The screenshots below show the desktop version of Zotero. The web version looks very similar and works almost identically, so there's no need to separately show it.

To manually save a journal article, for instance, click the "New item" button above the center column, then choose "Journal Article:"

Now, in the right pane, enter the details of this journal article:

The "New Item" menu shows a few common types of references. If you mouse over the "More" submenu, you get a list of almost all the types of items Zotero support:

The Desktop version of Zotero intentionally obscures the option to manually reference a webpage. This is because it is easier and more powerful to reference a web page using the Zotero Connector browser plugin. See the "Automatically enter references" tab for more details.

However, it is possible to manually add a reference for a webpage. First you will need to manually create a reference for some other type of item. Then, in the right pane, choose "Web page" from the "Item Type" drop down: