Bonus: UiB VPN and BA Thesis Template!
2023.04.09 (v. 4.1)
This document is in progress. If you find mistakes, confusing language, etc., please contact me (Nathan). I will fix what I can as soon as I can.
Information about Zotero was written for version 6. Zotero is now on version 7. Some things have changed, mostly regarding plugins. I will update this when I can.
This document will provide basic information on how to :
use Zotero, a free-and-open-source (FOSS) software application, to make citations (and reading and note taking/making) easier
install and use the university VPN to access academic resources from off campus
use the BA thesis template to structure your writing and make sure you have all the information you need
The focus is on Zotero. Why? Because if you learn to use Zotero efficiently, it will make your citations easy and consistent, and save you many hours of work and a lot of frustration.
The major sections are:
Essentially, plagiarism is the theft of someone else’s ideas, words, or materials (their intellectual products or property). It can be deliberate, but more often it is careless, i.e., forgetting to acknowledge (cite) when you are borrowing from someone else. Put another way, whether you quote, summarize, or paraphrase, you must give credit to the original author(s). Failure to do so is plagiarism.
Plagiarism is dishonest. Plagiarism is cheating. It will be dealt with harshly, because it is antithetical to the values of our academic community. It also detracts from your education: stealing the work of others does not help you learn. The Japanese word is 盗作 (literally, “stealing someone’s work”).
To avoid plagiarism (academic dishonesty), you will be doing a lot of citation! But citation is tedious and time-consuming, with lots of formats to memorize and authors and dates to type...
Or is it?
Zotero is a citation manager. Citation managers are databases that connect with your browser (input) and Word Processor (output) so you can store citation data once and then reuse it endlessly (and error-free) in your papers without ever needing to type a citation again!
If you start early and learn how to use Zotero efficiently, this will save you dozens of hours in your career in our program, and many more if you continue on in academia. If you plan to do a PhD and become an academic, it will be hundreds of hours―at least! And in fact, Zotero is pretty useful even if you don’t go into academia.
All citation managers have the following core functions:
Collect the citation information for articles, books, webpages, etc.
Collect articles, books, webpages, etc., either as attachments, links, snapshots, etc.
Seamlessly insert full, properly formatted citations and bibliography entries into your papers.
There are other functions, too, but that’s the basic idea.
Zotero’s “connectors” support most major browsers and its plugins support Microsoft Word (not the Office 365 version), Google Documents, and LibreOffice Write. Write is a good option because it is free and open source software (FOSS), but it does have drawbacks. Additionally, Zotero does not work with Pages or Scrivener (both macOS only). However, there are some newer online writing platforms such as Zettlr and LogSeq that support Zotero, if you are interested in bleeding-edge academic writing tools -- though support can be finicky.
Note also that Zotero is one of UiB’s recommended citation managers, which means that there is a guide on the library website (Norwegian version here) and that there are courses and user support available, too.
If you want a really quick overview of how and why to use Zotero, try this short video guide on YouTube.
Use Zotero’s quickstart guide to learn about installing Zotero and some of the basics.
There are many other guides out there on the intertubes, including this one from Dickinson College in the US and this one from NTNU. If you just need to know how to add items to Zotero, this guide is clear and complete.
Please make sure that you have a Zotero account and that you are properly syncing your data to the Zotero cloud storage! That way, even if you spill some Red Bull on your computer while pulling an all-nighter two days before your thesis is due, you won’t lose any data.
You can also give yourself an extra layer of security by including all of your sources in our shared online library, discussed in the UiB Zotero Group section of this document. There are other benefits, too, so check it out!
We recommend one of the following citation styles. There are examples of each below.
Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition (author-date)
the default for many of the social sciences, including linguistics, etc.
Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition (note)
the default for history
Both are preinstalled in Zotero. If you need another style for some reason (you probably won’t), you can add them from here.
Most important: pick a style that works for you and stick with it. You won’t be penalized for using author-date in a history paper, for example, and it is pretty annoying to switch between styles once you have started a document. There are two reasons for this:
placement of the citation
placement of the author’s name
Author-date
Hopson (2020, 2) and Shimotori (2019, 3) argue that this is not the case.
Some scholars have suggested that this is not the case (Hopson, 2; Shimotori 2019, 3).
Note
Some scholars have suggested that this is not the case.1
In other words, author-date requires that you integrate the citation into the sentence, which not infrequently means using the “Omit Author” function when entering the citation, as shown below in fig. 1.
Figure 1. Omit author
The note style preferred by historians requires author omission less frequently (but not never) because the reference goes in the footnote.
When adding items to the Zotero Group and citing them in your papers (including your thesis), please follow the guidelines below for:
format
minimum information required for each item type
Use the four item types listed below (book, journal article, book section, newspaper article) as a template for other, similar sources. For example, a magazine article should be pretty similar to a journal article. If you’re really stuck with something esoteric, ask the professor for that class or your advisor.
In principle, everything should be romanized with proper diacritics.
The online converters linked below should be used with caution: trust, but verify.
Japanese -- Modified Hepburn (converter)
Korean -- McCune-Reischauer or Revised Romanization (converter)
Enter everything in sentence case, capitalizing proper nouns and initial words only. Zotero knows which words to capitalize.
Note: If you import a citation or paste in citation information that is in ALL CAPS, for example, right-click it in Zotero and select the proper case from the dropdown menu, as shown in fig. 2.
Figure 2. Convert text case
(Same for editor, translator, etc.)
Separate surname (family name) and personal name except in the case of a non-human author, editor, etc., such as Yomiuri Shinbun.
In fig. 3, below, there are two human authors (Sigfridsson and Ryde) and one organization (Hessische...) The latter is in one field only. You would click on the two boxes to the right of the name to make two fields (i.e., for a human author). Click again to switch back.
Figure 3. Zotero author field
Place of publication should follow this format:
If multiple cities are listed, use only the first one: New York; London → New York
Abbreviate US states according to this list (two-letter abbreviations)
Disambiguate when necessary (not common)
Bergen, NJ vs. Bergen, Norway
Cambridge, MA vs. Cambridge (in the UK)
York, PA vs. York (also in the UK)
Paris, TX vs. Paris
etc.
By default, all sources will be recognized as US English. If your source is US English, you can either leave the Language field blank or enter “en-us.”
Zotero is pretty smart about recognizing “Chinese” and “Japanese,” for instance, but it’s best to use the citation style language (CSL) as shown here. This is how you distinguish between fr-FR (French, France) and fr-CA (French, Canada), for example.
Some common codes you might want to memorize:
ja-JP
nb-NO (Bokmål)
Include at least the following information for each citation.
Items listed in italics are recommended but not required.
It is also recommended that you add a “Short title” for each item. For a book or article, that’s often the title without the subtitle, for instance. This is important for historians using Chicago’s “note” styles.
Title
All authors, editors, translators, etc.
Place of publication
Publisher
Date
Sample
Hopson, Nathan. 2017. Ennobling Japan’s Savage Northeast: Tōhoku as Postwar Thought, 1945-2011. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.
Title
All authors, editors, translators, etc.
Publication (i.e. journal name)
Volume and/or issue (some journals only have one, not the other, but use both when you can)
Page range
Date
(URL or DOI)
Sample
Devylder, Simon, Christoph Bracks, Misuzu Shimotori, and Poppy Siahaan. “Carving the Body at Its Joints: Does the Way We Speak about the Body Shape the Way We Think about It?” Language and Cognition 12, no. 4 (2020): 577–613. doi:10.1017/langcog.2020.13.
(i.e. chapter in edited volume)
Title
All authors, editors, translators, etc.
Book title
Place of publication
Publisher
Page range
Date
Note: It’s often easiest to add the book (automatically from your browser or with the magic wand and ISBN, as shown below in fig. 4), right-click on it and make a duplicate, and then edit the duplicate.
Figure 4. Using the “Add by identifier” magic wand and a book ISBN to add a book to your library. Note that you can use the magic wand tool for any item with a permanent digital identifier (DOI, etc.)
Newspaper articles are a little different. You should include data such as the place, edition, and section if known and relevant, but other than that, citations can be minimalist.
Title
(All authors, editors, translators, etc. → not needed if there is no byline)
Publication
Date
No, this is not about our love lives. It’s about something almost as tricky, though (^_^;)
(This section deals with rare issues, and may not apply to you.)
Basically, what’s below is some workarounds for problems with unusual publication dates.
Date range: One of the problems with Zotero is that there is no obvious way to cite sources such as a series of newspaper or magazine articles. In other words, how do you cite a series of articles by the same author on different dates? The answer is not intuitive.
Example:
Katō Kanji. 1944. “Shokuryō mondai no konponsaku 1-4: Uchihara Kungenjochō Katō Kanji.” Yomiuri Shinbun, February 4–15, 1944.
How can you get that date range in Zotero?
Leave the Date blank
In “Extra” (down at the bottom of the citation information), enter the date range in this format:
issued: 1944-02-04/1944-02-15
If you have only the year or year and month, that’s fine, too. This is more likely to happen with a book series (which is even less common as a citation). For example, if you have a series of books published in 1997-1998: “issued: 1997/1998”
Original publication date: Especially if you’re a historian, you might find it useful or even critical to include the original date of a publication even if you are using a reprinted or otherwise reproduced version. For example, if you want to be clear that W.R. Crocker’s analysis of Japanese demography was originally published in 1931, even though you’re using the 2011 Routledge reprint, you can do that.
Example:
Crocker, Walter Russell. The Japanese Population Problem: The Coming Crisis. 1931. Reprint, London: Routledge, 2011.
How can you get that original date + the “reprint” note in Zotero?
In Date, enter 2011
In “Extra,“ enter the original date in this format:
Original date: 1931
Uncertain publication date: Well, you’ve probably guessed that we’re headed back to the Extra field again. This time, it’s to solve the problem of dealing with sources that have uncertain publication dates. Stay with me here as I get into the weeds for a second, or just skip ahead if you already know what I’m talking about.
Example:
Saiki Tadasu. “Kome to eiyō,” n.d. Saiki Eiyō Senmon Gakkō.
(n.d. = not dated, an abbreviation Zotero will add for you)
So, that’s the standard citation for an undated leaflet compiling photos of an exhibit from a 1932 event. I can be reasonably sure it’s from 1932, but the exhibited items were not photographed in situ, i.e., in the exhibition hall. So it could be that all the photos were taken afterward. In fact, I know from my own archival work that at least some of the exhibited items are still extant and in good shape. That means that I can’t be 100% sure of the date. But, from everything I know, I’m willing to bet it’s 1932. OK, what now?
Our other option is:
Saiki Tadasu. “Kome to eiyō,” [1932?]. Saiki Eiyō Senmon Gakkō.
How can you get that [date?] in Zotero?
Leave Date blank
In Extra, enter your assumed publication date in this format:
Issued: ~1932
Capitalization in Multilingual Citations If you’re like me, occasionally you’ll have a citation that contains multiple languages.
Example:
Hopson, Nathan. 2023. “Nutritionists in Japan as a Professional Elite, 1914-1964.” In Professional Elites of Modern Japan, edited by Aleksandra Kobiljski and Nicolas Fiévé. Bibliothèque de l’Institut des Hautes Études Japonaises du Collège de France. Collège de France.
The problem here is that English and French are capitalized differently in some citation systems, including Chicago (which I use a lot as a historian, as noted above). If you set the language to English (or leave the Language field blank, which defaults to English), you’ll end up with the citation below. I’ve highlighted the problems with capitalization.
Hopson, Nathan. 2023. “Nutritionists in Japan as a Professional Elite, 1914-1964.” In Professional Elites of Modern Japan, edited by Aleksandra Kobiljski and Nicolas Fiévé. Bibliothèque de l’Institut Des Hautes Études Japonaises Du Collège de France. Collège de France.
To be clear, this is neither a common issue, nor a really important one. But the fix is also super simple, so here it is. Enclose the text in the problem fields (just Publisher, in this case) with the following HTML tags:
<span class="nocase">Text Here</span>
Et voilà!
If you have added the PDF of an article or book to your Zotero library, you can read and highlight that file in Zotero itself. You can then export those highlights, complete with page numbers, directly to your Zotero notes.
Figure 5. "Add Note from Attachments" dialog.
Additionally, you can write and edit your own formatted text notes and, using our Zotero Group, share them with everyone. This works both ways: you can also benefit from other students’ notes.
Two things about this:
This only works (really) if everyone is contributing, which is why adding notes to the Zotero Group is an assignment in some classes. That will at least get us started, and hopefully convince you it’s worth it.
Trust, but verify. Don’t assume another student’s notes on a source are definitive, comprehensive, or even accurate. You still need to read the sources yourself. And you should only use someone else’s notes as a reference, in the same way you’d use a book review, podcast, or any other summary or secondary source.
Note: Zotero should automatically sync with the Group on a regular basis, but you can also manually sync to get the latest sources and notes by clicking the green circular arrow (↺) in the top right. You can see that in the figure below.
Okay, with that out of the way, notes:
In the middle pane of Zotero, if you click on a source, the right pane will display the full citation information (Info). But as shown below in fig. 6, there is also a Notes tab (and Tags and Related, which we won’t be explaining in this guide, as they’re low-priority features for our purposes).
Figure 6. The Notes tab in Zotero’s right pane.
Click on Notes and you get a text editor. You can input text notes here with basic formatting, including bullet points and numbered lists.
However, rather than typing your source notes here, we recommend that you type them into whatever word processor or note-taking app, etc., you usually use. You can then copy-paste them into Zotero. That way you can create and keep your notes in your normal environment as well as have them in the shared environment of our Zotero Group.
For example, take notes in Word or Google Documents, and when you’re done, just Ctrl-A/⌘-A, Ctrl-C/⌘-C, and then Ctrl-V/⌘-V into Zotero’s Notes tab. ＼(^o^)／
Notes:
When you highlight in the Zotero PDF reader, you can choose multiple colors. I use orange, yellow, and blue, for example. To see those colors in the Zotero item note, click the ... in the top right of a note and select "Show Annotation Colors."
If you want to customize how your annotations look in the Notes tab (and are a geek like me), check this out.
Zotero supports many addons (plugins) that give the app additional functionality.
Among the best and most useful is Zotfile. Download it here (right-click and save the .XPI file), then install Zotfile in Zotero: Tools → Add-ons → Tools → ⚙ (top right) → Install Add-on From File.
Among other things, Zotfile will allow you to:
Automatically attach or link files to Zotero items (from your Downloads folder, cloud storage etc.). One important result is that you can link files from OneDrive or Dropbox, Google Drive, etc., without using up your free Zotero storage quota. There is a useful guide here.
Extract annotations (highlights, notes, etc.) from PDFs. This is an incredibly powerful note-taking feature because you can automatically save all your highlights -- with page numbers and links to the location in the documents! -- directly into Zotero and edit, search, etc., anytime. You will need a compatible PDF reader (most are, but there are notable exceptions, so beware!)
Automatically rename attachments according to rules you set up. Helps keep things automatically organized.
Zotfile works best if you have Better BibTeX installed, too.
We have a private group where we can share our citations and notes. Please join and contribute!
Make your own personal Zotero account, then join the group by sending a request email to me. I will send you an invitation.
By joining, you will have access to a growing, shared body of knowledge and sources that can be useful to your thesis. It’s totally worth it!
Many of the online resources you will need for your thesis are paywalled. In other words, they are not free. You need a subscription to read them, or to pay for each one à la carte.
For example, if you wanted to read my article, “‘A Bad Peace?’ – The 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition” (Japanese Studies 2018) off campus, here are your options:
48 hours access to article PDF & online version
EUR 43.00
This sucks. Don't do it. (It's not that good.)
However, if you are on the UiB campus, you will have access to the article for free because the university has a subscription! And if you're not on campus, you can use the university VPN (Norsk) to be "virtually" on campus. This will give you all the same user rights.
This is a lifesaver.
Note: If you still have access to the resources of your university in Japan, you may have additional resources there. Check your library website, for example, or ask someone.
I have prepared a Word template for the BA thesis.
This section explains how to use the template, but please note that it is not a requirement. It is supposed to make your life easier. If it doesn't, don't use it. But you should definitely check it to make sure you have all the sections you need and that they are in the correct order.
Put differently, this template is not for writing your thesis. It is for submitting your thesis.
It's more like a checklist in that sense.
In other words, write your thesis in the program and structure your are most comfortable with. Then, copy and paste all of the necessary sections into the template to make sure you have what you need and that it is correctly formatted and in the correct order. Write over all of the text highlighted in yellow and remove all of the [square brackets] that mark it.
When you have done that, delete all the sections you are not using.
Don't change the section order or the headings, subheadings, and section and page breaks.
And do not touch the page numbers. Trust me!
If you are logged in to Mitt UiB, you should have no trouble accessing it, but if you do, let me know.
The template structure is:
Frontmatter
Title Page
Copyright Notice (optional, and can be changed)
Dedication (optional)
Acknowledgment (optional)
Abstract (twice…)
Table of Contents
Lists of Tables, Illustrations, Figures (if needed; see here for instructions)
Preface (optional)
Body
Introduction
Chapter Summaries and Synopsis of Conclusions
Notes (change this if necessary)
Chapters
Conclusion
Note: Regular text should be double-spaced (or 1.5). Use 12pt Times New Roman, Palatino Linotype, or a similar, standard serif font.
Backmatter
Afterword (optional)
Appendices (optional, but useful for tables, figures, etc., that don't fit well in the text)
Sources Cited
Glossary (if needed)
Index (optional, and a lot of work; see here)
All of those headings and subheadings have been assigned styles (Heading 1, Heading 2).
The headings will automatically become your Table of Contents, so don’t mess with the styles.
When you are done and ready to submit, right-click the Table of Contents and select "Update Field" to finalize the TOC. See here for more.
If styles get messed up, the simplest way to fix it is to select correctly formatted text and copy-paste the format.
You can view the structure of your document while editing by following the instructions here.
Hints
Keep capitalization in [TITLE], etc.
Copy-paste to replace [TITLE], etc. Save time!
When formatting, it helps to show formatting.
Consider using a numbering scheme such as 1.1, 1.2, etc., for the chapter subheadings.
If you plan to use figures: Right-click image > Insert Caption > Group (Adjust Wrap Text as needed)
Also, if you want side-by-side images or other more advanced formatting, inserting the images and captions into a table with invisible borders is an excellent quick and dirty trick for hassle-free formatting. On table formatting, see here.