Information about the sources you save from websites and search tools, including databases or library catalogs, may need to be edited so you have the correct information for your citation style. Zotero can only find the data each of these search tools makes available. If the information the search tools has is incorrect or missing, Zotero will also have incorrect or missing data.
1. Review the information about your source in the right pane of your Zotero library. Look for missing or incorrect information. In this example of a journal article, the volume, issue, page number, and DOI information is missing. Many citation styles require this information.
2. To correct this information, first find the correct information on the journal's website or on the PDF of the article. In this example, the volume, page number, and DOI are available on the article's website.
3. Next, in the right pane of your Zotero library, click in the fields that are missing information and type or paste in the correct information.
1. There are several types of possible formatting errors. In this example, the title is incorrectly formatted. It is in all caps. If the title displays in all caps, or if the title should be in sentence case rather than title case, right click on the title field, then choose either Title Case or Sentence case from the menu depending on the requirements of your citation style.
2. If the correct source type is not chosen, for example, if a journal article is displayed as a website or a book chapter is displayed as a book, begin by changing the item type. In this example, the Item Type is incorrectly set as document but it should be a book chapter or section. Click on the Item Type field to select the correct item type.
3. The fields available in the right pane will adjust to provide you with the correct fields so you can cite this source. First look up the correct information to cite this source. In this example, the book's website gives information about the book title, book editors, chapter title, and chapter authors - all information that is needed to cite a book chapter.
4. Some of this information can be entered in the fields Zotero automatically provides, such as the Book Title information. But for some of the information you will need to add some additional fields. In this example, additional author fields must be added for the book editors. Then the author role must be adjusted to editor. First add the required number of author or editor fields by clicking the plus symbol at the end of the list of current authors. Next, enter the editors' names.
Finally, change the author role to editor using the author drop-down menu and selecting editor.
