F&M College Library

CNX229: Everyday Design

A course guide for Professor Laurie's CNX229 class, spring semester 2020.

Organizing Your Research


It's important to keep track of your papers, newspaper articles, and other resources for your class work. This can manifest in several different ways, and can be as simple or as complex as you'd like it to be. To start, I recommend making a concept map like I mentioned in class (see an example completed map to your right), to keep track of your keywords and searches. You can use a computer program like Lucidchart, or pen and paper - it's up to you! 

Also remember to keep track of your citations in Zotero - it's easiest if you add the articles and other resources as you find them, to ensure that you're not scrambling to find articles a second time. For further help using Zotero, remember that you can reach out to Anna Boutin-Cooper or use Zotero's helpful Quick Start Guide

Creating a Bibliography with Zotero

Citation management tools, like Zotero, are a great way to help with any of your research projects at F&M. 

You can use Zotero to compile citations in their correct format, and export it as a document to then work on your annotated bibliography. 

First, open up Zotero on your desktop. 

Then, navigate to the folder that you've stored your citations in. You may find it helpful to create a folder just for this class. From here, hold down the Shift key, and select the items that you'd like to put on your bibliography. Then, right click. You'll notice a menu bar pops up. From here, select "Create Bibliography from Items..."

You'll then notice that a list pops up of citation styles that you can choose from. Select the one you're using from the list. Then, select "Bibliography" under Output Mode, and select "Save as HTML" or "Copy to Clipboard" under Output Method. 

If you picked "Save as HTML," you should be prompted to save a new document onto your desktop. Title it "ART271 Bibliography," and save. Then, open it. From here, you'll be directed to a web window with your bibliography. Copy and paste it into a new Google Doc or Word Doc, and fix any formatting issues according to your citation style. Here's what you should see in your web browser: 

If you selected "Copy to Clipboard," your bibliography is now on your clipboard. Simply open a Google or Word Doc, and paste in your bibliography. Make sure you fix any spacing or other issues, in accordance with your chosen citation style.