Metadata Management, Tags & Folder Organization

Metadata Management

Often, when adding articles or other documents automatically, some metadata fields may arrive with formatting errors, blank information, or even classified under the wrong document type (e.g., a book chapter captured as a journal article).

To ensure that your citations and references turn out perfect in the future, we need to review and, if necessary, manually edit these fields.

As we saw in the previous topic, Zotero centralizes all of this information in the right panel. Any field in this area can be freely edited.

Here is how simple it is to make adjustments:

1. Select the item you want to correct in the central column of your library.
2. Look at the right panel (the “Info” tab). All the metadata is located there.
3. Click directly on the text of the field that needs editing (for example, the “Title” or “Date” field). The text box will become editable.
4. Type the correct information and press Enter (or click outside the box) to save.

Changing the Item Type

If the document was imported with the wrong category, click on the Item Type field (the very top item in the right panel list). A drop-down menu will appear allowing you to select the correct classification (Book, Journal Article, Web Page, etc.). Zotero will automatically adjust the available fields!

Adjusting Author Names

If Zotero imports the author in a messy way or if it is an institutional author (such as “Ministry of Education” or “World Health Organization”), you can adjust the structure of the field.

Simply click on the small white icon located to the right of the author text box. It toggles between the “Last / First” format (divided into two fields) and the “Single Field” format.

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Collections and Subcollections (Folders)

When starting to use Zotero, it is very common to save everything into the root of “My Library”. However, you can create folders (which Zotero calls Collections) to stay organized.

Even if you do not have a “perfect” organization system in mind yet, starting by separating your texts by course, semester, or chapter of your paper makes a huge difference!

1. Creating a Collection (Main Folder): In the top-left corner, above “My Library”, click on the icon depicting a folder with a plus sign ‘+’ (New Collection). You can also right-click on “My Library” and select the same option. Give a name to your project or course.
2. Creating a Subcollection (Subfolder): If your project is large, you can create folders within folders to keep everything more organized. Simply right-click on a collection you have already created and select New Subcollection….
3. Storing your items: To place a text inside a collection, click on the item in the middle column, hold, and drag it to the desired folder in the left column.

Zotero Collections

Unlike regular folders on your computer, placing the same article in two different collections in Zotero does not duplicate the PDF file nor use up extra space on your hard drive. The software simply creates “shortcuts”. That means you can place the same article in both the “Methodology” folder and the “Final Project” folder without any issues!

Because of this, pay close attention when deleting an item: to remove an item only from the current folder, right-click on it and choose Remove Item from Collection. But beware: if you choose Move Item to Trash, it will be deleted from your entire library and will disappear from all collections altogether!

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Tags

While folders (collections) help separate your items by projects or courses, tags are incredibly flexible tools for cross-referencing topics and organizing your workflow across categories.

You can use tags to mark key concepts, separate methodologies, or even set the status of a document (e.g., read, annotate, urgent).

1. Creating a tag: Select an item in your library (central column). In the right panel, scroll down to the Tags tab, click the Add button, and type the desired name.
2. The Tag Selector: Look at the bottom-left corner of the Zotero screen. There is a panel (a tag cloud) that gathers all the tags you have used in your library.
3. Filtering the library: Click on any tag in this bottom-left panel. Zotero will apply an instant filter and display only the items in the central column that contain that tag. To remove the filter, simply click on the tag again.
4. Assigning Colors: In the same bottom-left panel, right-click on a tag you consider very important (such as a reading status) and select Assign Color….
5. Choose a color, set a keyboard shortcut number (optional), and click OK.

Visual Organization

When you assign a color to a tag, Zotero displays a small colored circle right next to the article title in the main list.

Note: Zotero usually imports “Automatic Tags” that come along with the article data. To prevent your panel from becoming cluttered in the future, you can disable this default behavior: open the application Preferences (or Settings), go to the General tab, scroll down to the Miscellaneous section, and uncheck the box “Automatically tag items with keywords and subject headings”.

Bonus: Related Items

In the same right-hand panel, right next to “Tags”, you will find the Related tab. It allows you to create an internal “link” between two or more materials in your library. This is an excellent feature for connecting, for example, a book chapter to different scientific articles that replicate the same experiment.

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