Skip to Main Content

Zotero

An in-depth guide to using Zotero.

Changing the Style of your Document

Sometimes it is necessary to change the style used for formatting citations and bibliographies, perhaps because you were unsure what style to use when you started writing, or because your teacher, advisor, or publisher asked you to use a different style. In Zotero, it's easy to change the style of your document, but there are a few pitfalls described below.

Changing the style of your document.

To change the style, click "Document Preferences" in the Zotero Toolbar.This should bring up a dialog to select the style you want to apply. 

Select the appropriate style and click OK. Zotero will update your document to the newly selected style. In this example, we'll change to IEEE style:

Common pitfalls when changing styles.

The most common pitfall is the proper placement of citations. Some styles (like IEEE) only place in-text citations at the end of a sentence, while others, such as APA, allow citations anywhere. To move a citation, simple cut & paste it, then execute a Zotero refresh to make sure the citation copied.

Other problems can be addressed by editing the citation.

Adding New Styles

Zotero comes with the most widely used citation styles pre-installed. However, if you are writing for publication, your publisher may ask you to use their own style. Don't worry! Zotero has a library of more than 10,000 styles to choose from.

To add a new style, start by clicking "Document Preferences" in the Zotero Toolbar to bring up the styles dialog, then click the "Manage Styles" link under the list of styles.

This brings up a slightly different styles dialog. In this one, click "Get additional styles.:

This will open a searchable list of styles. Start by searching for the name of the journal you want to publish in, the publisher you're working with, or some other keyword. In this case want to publish my paper in "Transportation Research Record." Click on the style and it will be added to Zotero.

 

Acknowledgement

The example text on this page was quoted from X. Yang, X. Li, and K. Xue, “A new traffic-signal control for modern roundabouts: method and application,” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 282–287, Dec. 2004, doi: 10.1109/TITS.2004.838181.