Upgrade StorageStreamline Creating an Annotated Bibliography
Hello,
Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I have a feature request/recommendation: Zotero should streamline the process of making an annotated bibliography.
I understand it's already possible to make one, but this was not immediately obvious to me. I'm fairly technically inclined, and I just spent 10-15 minutes poking around in the software and on the internet trying to figure out if/how this was possible. Most users are not so willing or so tolerant, and I can't help but see this as fitting into a pattern of open-source software being plagued by usability issues that hold it back from mass adoption.
Right now, a person has to:
(1) Dig around in Zotero's Preferences menu and locate the styles manager.
(2) Use "Get additional styles" to search for the specific format they want, hoping someone has made an annotated bibliography version of it.
(3) Somehow figure out that they should type the annotation in the "Extra" field (probably by finding their way to a forum like this one).
(4) Export the bibliography with the style found in step 2.
Making an annotated bibliography seems like a fairly common workflow, the sort of thing that a citation manager like Zotero could do well. And to me, it seems like the solution would be fairly simple:
Add a button (or a tab, what have you) to add an annotation to a citation. This should open a text entry field similar to adding a note, but with less fancy formatting options. The user can type the annotation in here; max one annotation per citation item. Then, when exporting a bibliography, have a checkbox (that defaults to being checked if any of the items have an annotation) for "include annotations" that would just tack annotations on the end of any style (i.e., don't need a whole separate style for 'annotated bibliography' of each style).
I would enthusiastically jump into the open source work and try to code this up myself.... except I'm still in my first semester of Computer Science and doubt I would be of much use. DrRacket is great, but probably not helpful for adding features to a complex application built in another language I don't know.
So, in the meantime..... please?
Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I have a feature request/recommendation: Zotero should streamline the process of making an annotated bibliography.
I understand it's already possible to make one, but this was not immediately obvious to me. I'm fairly technically inclined, and I just spent 10-15 minutes poking around in the software and on the internet trying to figure out if/how this was possible. Most users are not so willing or so tolerant, and I can't help but see this as fitting into a pattern of open-source software being plagued by usability issues that hold it back from mass adoption.
Right now, a person has to:
(1) Dig around in Zotero's Preferences menu and locate the styles manager.
(2) Use "Get additional styles" to search for the specific format they want, hoping someone has made an annotated bibliography version of it.
(3) Somehow figure out that they should type the annotation in the "Extra" field (probably by finding their way to a forum like this one).
(4) Export the bibliography with the style found in step 2.
Making an annotated bibliography seems like a fairly common workflow, the sort of thing that a citation manager like Zotero could do well. And to me, it seems like the solution would be fairly simple:
Add a button (or a tab, what have you) to add an annotation to a citation. This should open a text entry field similar to adding a note, but with less fancy formatting options. The user can type the annotation in here; max one annotation per citation item. Then, when exporting a bibliography, have a checkbox (that defaults to being checked if any of the items have an annotation) for "include annotations" that would just tack annotations on the end of any style (i.e., don't need a whole separate style for 'annotated bibliography' of each style).
I would enthusiastically jump into the open source work and try to code this up myself.... except I'm still in my first semester of Computer Science and doubt I would be of much use. DrRacket is great, but probably not helpful for adding features to a complex application built in another language I don't know.
So, in the meantime..... please?
Anyone?
...
Bueller?
Zotero has Reports, which include item bibliographic data and notes. This meets the needs of most people who want an annotated bibliography.
If you really want a formatted reference and annotations alone, it’s a fairly intuitive spot to type the annotations in the big text box at the bottom of the item information.
Adding a citation style is a core part of using Zotero. Nearly all users are in a position where they need to add a style once they start using the program. In most cases, APA or Chicago styles, which provide annotated bibliography versions, meet user needs.
I just checked out Reports, and I can tell you that I have never had to produce an annotated bibliography that looked anything like that. School assignments, at least, always want a simple citation with a block of text (annotation) below it. They definitely don't want the notes in there.
Intuitive? Big text box at the bottom of the item information? What interface are you using? The desktop app and the web vault have "Extra" as a tiny afterthought near the bottom of a long list of sometimes-filled, sometimes-blank boxes. I never noticed it until I knew I needed to specifically look for it. Not to mention the fact that, in order to figure out that's where I should type annotations (after adding the annotated citation style), I had to rummage through an online forum. I never would have figured it out just from looking at the UI.
Okay, a few points to address this:
(1) Yeah, if the Preferences menu is such a core part of using Zotero, then it should get its own dedicated "settings" gear button in the UI. Burying it under the Edit dropdown is not helping anyone.
(2) Nearly all users? Zotero comes pre-packaged with ACS, AMA, APSA, APA, ASA, Chicago, Cite Them Right, Elsevier, IEEE, MHRA, MLA, Nature, and Vancouver citation styles. I would maintain that should cover 90%+ of new users' needs. I, for one, had no reason to seek out the style manager until after I Googled 'how to make an annotated bibliography in zotero'.
(3) Annotated bibliography versions of any of the above are not similarly pre-packaged with Zotero. In order to use them, a new user has to follow pretty much the same steps as me: look up instructions on the internet, realize they need to add a citation style, go in and do that, get confused, do more internet research, then finally figure out they need to use the Extra box tucked randomly amongst the other citation info.
(4) Come to think of it, looking at the style manager page, there is a checkbox already there for adjusting URL inclusion options. Would it be so hard to add another one to include annotations tacked onto whatever style the user had otherwise selected?
Among students, at least, I am under the impression that my use case should be fairly common.
My university pays for subscriptions to three other proprietary citation managers. Clearly Zotero needs to get a lot better before they will consider pushing more users toward it and perhaps getting an official subscription. I think this is one thing that could help (out of many other issues that need attention).
Annotated bibliographies are context dependent. How you annotate a work depends on the topic of the bibliography. Therefore, the annotations are a feature of the bibliography, not the items being cited. If I want to create an annotated bibliography, I create a bibliography and then write the annotations under the respective items. *Maybe* I have the relevant annotations in a note, but I typically wouldn't.
I'm sure there are some cases of people who repeatedly want to produce annotated bibliographies with the same references and the exact same annotations (and for those we do have the relevant citation styles and they seem to find them just fine), but I just don't see very much of that.
- I love Zotero, it is my mainstay for recording academic material, is a great and trustworthy reference manager. The way it is integrated and works with Word is just fantastic. I can organise my material according to subjects, I can tag and make notes.
- I think Zotero should expand its brief to encompass the widest gambit of academic uses. I think it's vision should aim to be the #1 and preferred choice of academics, universities and students. I think its nearly there
- Annotated bibliography. In this information age and in light of fake news, misleading reports, and people with different agendas, an annotated bibliography is becoming more popular - it demonstrates the journey of research you have been up to. Now is the time for Zotero to construct an annotated section for their already impressive reference manager.
- Maybe this is a big project (like not for revision but for version 7 etc), however I don't think it is unworkable. in the RHS info bar there is already info/notes/tags/related...there could be another as annotated bibliography. this feature could be guided by Zotero (not sure to what level of detail) but prompts might include such detail as intro/aims/research methods/scope/limitations/conclusion. I would suggest a copy-paste action for annotated bibliography, so the author(me) gets to choose what I put in the bibliography. (because I don't want to interfere with the reference list that zotero curates for me)
- by the way, right now I'm doing annotated bibliography in the "notes" section as free text. because...well...I'm a student (used zotero as an undergrad, now doing postgrad) and that's the intuitive quickest way I found to put the info I want/need in the place where I will remember it.
- I hope everyone will be openminded about this concept and idea going forward, I believe it will be a valuable feature if incorporated into Zotero
thanks for all your hard work
Much better than in the version or revision. As an addon, it's an extra feature.
Sometimes takes me a little while to catch up...
I guess you can always do it manually, but it does get a bit cumbersome if you have, say, 30-40 items (as the OP might). I was very grateful for my rudimentary bibtex knowledge back in the day.
1. Make the annotation display as block text rather than a hanging indent.
2. Provide an additional annotated style for MLA 9; this is a common format that could use that functionality.
3. Maybe change the label for the Extra field to "Annotation" instead.
Those additions would make the feature much more convenient and useful in my opinion. As is, I still think it's useful to save annotations in the Extra field and copy and paste them into the paper once the fields have been unlinked to make formatting less fiddly. I will tell my students to either do that or type their annotations into the paper after the fact the old-fashioned way. It's not a big deal, but the above suggestions could make Zotero that much more of a time-saver.