Using Zotero in Authorea
Authorea is an online platform designed for academic writing and publishing. For academics and students, it's a particularly good alternative to collaborative writing platforms such as Google Docs due to its robust citing functionality and myriad other features beyond the scope of this post. I do the majority of my writing in Authorea and host the
Alternative Hypothesis blog on the site. Here I will briefly cover the process for integrating Zotero into Authorea and accessing references within the platform.
First, I should be more specific. You do not actually integrate Zotero into Authorea as you do with MS Word or Libre Writer; rather, you attach an exported library file to an Authorea document so you are able to cite your references within that document. If you're not especially tech savvy, don't worry; this is easier than it sounds. Begin by exporting your Zotero library as a .bib file. To do this, open desktop Zotero, select the My Library
folder, then navigate to File -> Export Library
. You will see a number of export types in a drop down menu. Select BibTeX
from this list and leave Character Encoding
at the default Unicode (UTF-8)
as shown in Fig. 20. I tend to leave the Translator Options
unchecked; but if you are writing with a citation style that uses journal abbreviations, you will want to check this option (note: APA 6th does not use abbreviations). Name your newly created .bib file and select a location to save it.
Although Authorea will accept file names with spaces, many programs do not. It's good practice to always name files with some form of connector between words rather than spaces (e.g., zotero-lib-full.bib or zotero_my-library.bib).