Annotated Bibliography

I am looking to create an annotated bibliography--where I have my citation and then followed by a paragraph descritpion that I create--includes the abstract. I see that I can work with the abstract field in Zotero--I am unclear though how to create the bibliography showing the abstract field?

Is this the correct way to do this? Any thoughts?
  • There is a style in the Zotero Style Repository that is APA 6th edition with the abstract printed in the manner you want (https://www.zotero.org/styles/apa-annotated-bibliography).

    You can use that style to create an annotated bibliography. If you want a style other than APA, you can use that one as a guide and modify whichever style you want (e.g., MLA, Chicago). Basic style modification instructions are here: https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

    If you want to keep the official published abstract in your Zotero data, as well as your personal description, you might consider using the "Extra" field, rather than the Abstract field. You can access this field in CSL styles with the "note" variable. To modify the APA Annotated Bibliography style to use Extra, rather than Abstract, download the linked .csl file, open it in a text editor, and replace all instances of "abstract" with "note".
  • This is perfect. I simply had to learn how to add this style--easy to download and then add from the preferences! Nice! Love the work around also===what is the advantage here? Why not just use the astract field?
  • no advantage per se, it's just a matter of preference. As bwiernik suggests, some people may want to distinguish between the official abstract of a paper (in the abstract field) and your own annotations (in the extra field). But if you're happy using the abstract field, by all means go with that.
  • And if I want to do this Adam Smith--then I simply change the coding? Both the abstract and note field will then appear? Or is it, one or the other?
  • you can do both, absolutely.
  • So, this has been so helfpul. What I want to do is to have BOTH the abstract field and the extra field show up. I want to use the extra for my notes, etc. I can't find out how to make this happen. I had downloaded both APA and Chicago styles.

    Any suggestions?
  • Las notas de la ficha se corrigen en idioma inglés. Es posible que lo haga en idioma español?
  • The notes of the record is correct in English. You may do it in Spanish ?
  • see https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/19771/workaround-to-disable-spell-checker/
    for more, please post there or start a new thread. This one is about citation styles, so it's not actually related to your question.
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