Hands-on Exercises with Zotero

These practical exercises are designed to help you use Zotero in real research situations. The topics draw on current issues such as young people’s use of social media, the situation in the Sahel, and the preparation of a literature review.

Exercise 1: Organizing a Literature Review

Context:

You are preparing a literature review on the impact of social media on young people’s political participation in the Sahel.

Instructions:

  1. Search for scholarly articles on Google Scholar using the keywords: “social media”, “political participation”, and “Sahel”.
  2. Use the Zotero browser connector to import at least 10 references into your Zotero library.
  3. Create a dedicated collection for this literature review.
  4. Add relevant tags such as “Facebook”, “Twitter”, or “engagement”.
  5. Generate a bibliography in APA style from your references.

Exercise 2: Analyzing Young People’s Use of Social Media

Context:

You are analyzing studies about the use of TikTok and Twitter by young people in the Sahel in order to better understand their digital practices.

Instructions:

  1. Search for reports or articles online about the use of TikTok and Twitter by young people in the Sahel region.
  2. Add non-academic sources manually in Zotero, such as reports or blog posts.
  3. Download relevant PDFs and use Zotero to retrieve the metadata automatically.
  4. Add notes to your references to summarize the key points of each source.
  5. Share a Zotero collection with a colleague for collaboration.

Exercise 3: Researching the Security Situation in the Sahel

Context:

You are conducting research on the social impacts of the security crisis in the Sahel, with a focus on recent studies.

Instructions:

  1. Identify at least 5 scholarly articles in academic databases.
  2. Add these references to Zotero and organize them in a new collection.
  3. Use Zotero’s advanced search to find articles containing the keyword “Sahel” in the title.
  4. Add tags and subcollections to organize your material by theme, such as “social impacts” or “migration”.
  5. Insert citations from your articles into a Google Docs document and generate a bibliography.

Exercise 4: Collaboration and Reference Sharing

Context:

You are working in a group to prepare a collaborative literature review on education policies in the Sahel.

Instructions:

  1. Create a Zotero group library and invite two colleagues to collaborate.
  2. Add references related to education policies in the Sahel to the shared library.
  3. Add comments or notes to the references so you can share your observations with your colleagues.
  4. Export the library as a CSV file and share it with the team.

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