There are many ways to collect citations with Zotero. We’ll go over some of the more common methods just to get started and to demonstrate what kind of information is being saved.

Before capturing we need to create a new collection in the Zotero desktop application.

Your Zotero library is the sum total of all citations from all collections.  You can organize your library into many collections. These are folders that can be used for topics, research projects, courses, or individual papers. It's up to you!

To create a collection:

Click on the folder icon on the upper left corner of the desktop application. Enter a name for the collection in the pop-up screen.

*More on Collections in Organizing your Library below.


Now select the collection that you just created, this will allow the browser connector know what collection you want to save citation data in.
 

Capturing will be triggered by the browser connector in the browser toolbar.

Note: if you do not see the Zotero extension, you might need to reinstall it or probably need to pin it so it appears on your browser toolbar. Pin it by clicking on the the icon that looks like a jigsaw puzzle piece and then pinning it.

Once the browser connector is pinned it will appear as a Z.


In your web browser, navigate to JSTOR from the library's A-Z list of databases. Now, do a search for a topic of your choice.

On the results page, you'll see the Zotero browser icon change to a file folder

The folder indicates that the webpage you're visiting contains multiple items. If you click on the folder, a pop-up box will allow you to easily select multiple items from this page. When you click <OK>, it will save all of these items to your Zotero library. 
After selecting the articles citations that you would like to collect, you will notice those specific articles being saved to the particular collection that you previously created.

If you have configured Zotero to automatically save PDFs, when available, the PDFs will be saved as attachments to each item.

Now, return to your search results page and click on a specific article title.
Notice how the Zotero browser icon has changed again.

This time, instead of a file folder, it shows the article icon.


Click on the icon to save this item to your library (and, if applicable, the PDF).

The article was saved to the collection that you previously created and selected in the desktop application.

Now, go back to your Zotero library in the desktop application, you should see the item in your library. 

Now we're going to try saving a book found through Google Scholar.

Navigate to https://scholar.google.com. In the search bar, type

Debates in the Digital Humanities

Notice the Zotero icon in the browser has now changed to a book. Click on the icon to save it, then return to your desktop app to view it in your library. Depending on the information embedded in the item, it may have saved the abstract and a link to Google Books along with the basic bibliographic information.

Now let's try saving a website.

Navigate to a favorite blog or other site, such as the https://nytimes.com and open a specific article. Notice the Zotero browser icon change [to a newspaper]. Click on the icon to save it, then return to your desktop app and view it in your library. What is different?

You should see an attachment for the item, which is a web snapshot. Zotero saved a copy of the webpage along with the citation information.

Items can appear in multiple collections by simply dragging the same reference into multiple collections and the Libraries and Collections Multiple Collections tool keeps track of every collection a reference resides in:

You can create sub-folders for each collection, by dragging a collection's folder icon into an existing collection.


By default you can sort your library or collections by Title, Creator, Year or Publication  by clicking on, for example, Year which will sort your citations by year.

You can also add additional bibliographic fields or Zotero based fields:



Note: You might notice that the same reference from different databases and websites may cause the same reference to appear differently. This is because different websites might have different structures which activate different “translators”  in Zotero.


To remove an item from your collection, right-click on the item or select the item and press the Delete key or select <Remove Item from Collection>. When you remove an item from a collection, it will not delete the item from your Zotero library.



Or you might discover a duplicate, if you do you can merge both references by selecting both items and selecting <Merge>:



Or you might want to completely delete an item from a collection and your entire library, if so select <Move Item to Trash>:

 

If you have a source that is not available online, such as an archival item, you can add it manually, by clicking on the  “New Item” button at the top of the middle pane and selecting the desired item type.

The item's bibliographic (metadata) information can be entered into right-hand pane.

You can drag and drop a PDF from your desktop into the middle pane of Zotero and if the file is formatted correctly a parent item will be created and bibliographic information (metadata) will be automatically generated in the right pane.  Sometimes you might  need to control-click on Macs and select <Create Parent Item> from the drop down list.

Add the metadata in the right pane after the empty parent item is created. 

The toolbar on the right side of the desktop allows you to access many features such as the the Item Citation Editing, abstract, attachment, notes, Libraries and Collections, Tags panes as well as the Lookup tool.

 

Items in your library can have notes, files, and links attached to them. If an item has an attachment, there will be an arrow next to the item. Click on the arrow to show or hide attachments.

The reader has create annotating tools (Highlight, Underline, ability to add notes and text and draw):

Notes can be attached to items and are useful for adding annotations or other information about a source. You can also create a standalone note by clicking the New Note icon (looks like a sticky note with a plus).

Inserting a Note

A Completed Note

Tags are another helpful way to organize your library. With tags you can apply different search terms, so you can easily discover the citations related to the specific tag. Many items online already have tags, you may or may not find these tags useful. If you do not, you can decide not to download these tags by setting Zotero->Preferences->General->Automatically Tag Items.

The Zotero.org site offers excellent documentation, including a comprehensive page on Zotero's search features, so I'll refer you there for details.

There are many other tasks that you can perform within your library, but the following are some of the more popular features.

A good way to review the bibliographic information with abstract and tags is using the <Generate Report> feature:

The generated report:



Finally, if you have a need to import into or use your bibliographic references in a different format or application you could select items and export:


After selecting <Export Items> a dialog will appear prompting you to select your desired format:


For example, a CSV file with your references: