This week Jessica Mussell gave a talk on using Zotero. I have not come across Zotero before so the information was useful. Being a second-year undergrad mature student with ADHD, correctly using citations can be difficult and time-consuming as my brain does not retain information easily. I have my system for adding references and citations to work as I go when writing assignments so I was interested if using Zotero would be an easier or quicker process. I installed the platform and tried it out as I was writing my current assignment.
I found the process of adding the resources into Zotero and then going into a Word document and adding them monotonous. When adding the resources into Zotero you can see the information but not the completed reference until you want to pull it into your Word document. I think it would take a bit of usage to get used to the steps needed and learning a new way of doing things. Zotero worked well on published articles and I did try an online media article which worked well. What the platform did not do efficiently was create a reference for a website that I needed. There perhaps was a way to troubleshoot but I resorted to my old way of doing things by using an online citation creator as I did not have the time to figure it out at that moment.
Overall I found Zotero a good tool and will keep using it to see if I can get used to it and use it quickly and effectively. The only problem I can envision is that as it is done automatically there is no learning process to practice creating references correctly. If I had been introduced to this in my first year of undergrad studies and not had to manually create some APA style references, make mistakes, and then have to correct them I would have missed out on some learning. If a program does something for me automatically I will have no desire to sit and learn how it is doing it and the knowledge will not be learned. I am glad I have been introduced to this tool and will keep experimenting and finding ways it can assist me in my learning journey.