This is goddamn huge

If you are cutting cards right now, stop.

Right now.

Go download Zotero.

You can thank me later.

Seriously though, having cut exactly one card with this, I think that zotero has the ability to save a lot of people a lot of time. It's a citation manager, so it keeps all your citations neat and tidy. Think of how much valuable information you'd have if you'd been using this since day one.

And apparently their next version will auto-sync between computers.

Oh, and hot tip, when you want to copy the cite out to word, use "Chicago Manual of Style (author-date format). It's just about right for debate.

Hot damn, they even have an openoffice plugin. This day just keeps getting better.

2 comments:

PFDebate said...

I've never tried cutting evidence with Zotero. I tried it with EndNote years ago and it just didn't work very well. Since then, EndNote has evolved to allow more customization so it might work.

The creators of Zotero are being sued by EndNote. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Ryan Ricard said...

Is this groven? Some other bob I know?

Yeah during my initial google search on Zotero I had the thought "My employer is suing them, it's gotta be good."

I haven't used Zotero enough to really know whether it is useful, but my initial impressions have me excited.

I can see a few different scenarios for zotero: just keeping cites in zotero and doing the "cards" in word, doing everything in zotero from article to finished evidence, or maybe various levels of usage in between.

I'll play around with it for a while and then do a longer write-up on how I find it most useful.