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ENGL 109: Introduction to Rhetoric

Guide created for Professor George Cusack -- Fall 2021

Zotero and Wordpress

Do you have a Wordpress blog and want an easy way to add academic citations and bibliographies to your posts? Try using the ZotPress plugin. Set-up and use instructions are below!

Setting Up Wordpress with ZotPress

You will need

  1. A Wordpress blog (either a Carleton-supplied blog from https://sites.carleton.edu/ or a self-hosted blog with Wordpress installed -- NOT a free blog from wordpress.com)
  2. A Zotero account (instructions here)

Install ZotPress

Using Carleton's Edublogs? Skip this step

  1. Install Zotpress extension from the internet https://wordpress.org/plugins/zotpress/
  2. Upload the zotpress folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.

Setting up ZotPress

  1. From your blog’s dashboard, go to Plugins, then browse or search for Zotpress. Click the Activate link.
  2. From the Zotero website, go to Settings and then "Feed/API." Find the API information on your online Zotero account under the Settings Menu. 
  3. Back in Wordpress, select Zotpress from the side menu of Wordpress, and enter your Zotero API information. 
  4. Click "Validate" and proceed to import.
    Pro-Tip: If you have a large library, it may be easier to use the “Selective Import” option to upload collections individually

Making Citations and Bibliographies

Your imported ZotPress library should sync with your Zotero library (if it doesn't, here is a support page that may help you), so you should be able to make citations out of any item within the library or sub-library that you chose to import.

Adding In-Text Citations

  1. As you're writing your post, use the “Zotpress Reference” box in the right-hand column of the edit page and click the "In Text" tab
  2. Search for the work in your library that you would like to cite
  3. Click “Generate Shortcode”
  4. Copy and paste the shortcode into your text wherever the citation is wanted

Adding a Full Bibliography

You can create either a bibliography of individually selected items or a bibliography of all the imported items in your ZotPress Library.

For individually selected items:

  1. Under the edit menu of your blog post, go over to the right-hand side where the Zotpress reference box is located
  2. Search for the work in your library that you would like to add to your bibliography. Repeat for each item you want to include. You will see them listed under the search box
  3. Use the Options menu to make the list sort alphabetically by author
  4. Click “Generate Shortcode”
  5. Copy and paste the shortcode into your text where you would like this bibliography item to appear.

For a full bibliography of all the items in your ZotPress library

  1. Under the edit menu of your blog post, go over to the right-hand side where the Zotpress reference box is located
  2. Leave the search box BLANK
  3. Use the Options menu to make the list sort alphabetically by author
  4. Click “Generate Shortcode”
  5. Copy and paste the shortcode into your text where you would like this bibliography item to appear

For a bibliography of one collection within your ZotPress library

  1. Follow the steps above to create a bibliography for all items and save your post as a draft
  2. Go to the ZotPress library in your WordPress blog and click on the collection you want to add. Copy the Collection Key that appears at the top of the page
  3. Return to your post. Inside the bracketed section, add the tag collection="collection key here" like this:
    [zotpress userid="28222" collection="W22HH6MQ" style="chicago-author-date" sortby="author" sort="ASC" cite="no"]

Optional: Add the same bibliography to every post on your blog

If you would like your Zotero library to appear on every page of your website/blog, you might consider using a Zotpress widget. Here is how: 

  1. Go under the Appearance menu option in the right-hand column Scroll down until you see the “Zotpress Widget” option
  2. Select where you would like your bibliography to be located
  3. Decide which library you would like the widget to feature by filling in the “API User/Group ID” information and the nickname given to the library upon importing into Zotpress